Russian General Sergei Surovikin was nicknamed “Armageddon” for his role during Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. But that overwhelming name has not been enough for the Kremlin to continue trusting him at the head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, a task he has carried out since 2017. Moscow appointed a new chief on Wednesday who will replace him at the head of this branch of his army. .
The new appointment was made known through the official Ría Nóvosti agency, which reported that the “former head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Sergei Surovikin, had been relieved of his position, while General Víktor Afzálov, chief of the General Staff of the Air Force, acts temporarily as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force.”
Surovikin also automatically ceased to be deputy commander of the Russian forces operating in Ukraine as part of the military campaign that began in February 2022.
The last time he was seen in public was on June 23, shortly after the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries, Yevgueni Prigozhin, announced that he was mutinying against the high command of the Russian army.
That day at night he appeared in a video, visibly nervous, in uniform and without insignia. In it he asked Prigozhin and his men to abort his rebellion.
The Wagner rebellion ended after negotiations with the Kremlin and an agreement for them to leave Russia and settle in the territory of its neighbor and ally, Belarus. But since then, nothing concrete has been known about this high command to which in October 2022 the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, entrusted the military intervention in Ukraine. Sergei Surovikin was in charge of the Russian forces participating in the so-called “special military operation” from October 2022 to January 2023, when that task was assumed by Valeri Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Surovikin was second to him.
After the Wagner revolt, various Russian and international media outlets claimed after the revolt that they were investigating Surovikin for possible complicity in the mutiny or, in any case, for having known of Prigozhin’s plans and not having prevented them.
Surovikin, 56, was the only Russian military commander Prigozhin, at odds with military leadership for months, had publicly said he trusted.
The New York Times published that the general was aware of the coup. The Moscow Times said that he had been arrested. Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov denied the reports, saying they were “speculation and conjecture.”
Other media placed him in the Lefórtovo prison, in Moscow. And some military bloggers claimed at the time that he and other senior officers had been being questioned about his possible role in the mutiny.
The general’s daughter, Veronika, came up against all these publications, who denied them on the Baza Telegram channel. “Honestly, nothing has happened to her. She is at her workplace,” and she assured that she was in contact with her father.
Surovikin led, with the exception of a few months, the Russian military contingent in Syria between 2017 and 2019, for which Russian President Vladimir Putin personally awarded him the Hero of Russia award.
He is known as “General Armageddon” for the brutality of his operations against cities like Aleppo controlled by the opposition to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
