Russian President Vladimir Putin has waged his first major purge in the army since the rebellion of the Wagner mercenary company last weekend. General Sergei Surovikin, one of the great exponents of one of the factions critical of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and close to businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been arrested for his alleged links to the mutiny.
The information has been disseminated both by the independent newspaper The Moscow Times, which cites two different sources, and by a well-known Russian pro-war blogger, Vladimir Romanov. According to this blogger, Surovikin is locked up in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow. The director of Echo of Moscow, the renowned journalist Alexei Venediktov, has also reported that the family of the soldier does not know his whereabouts since the rebellion. "General Surovikin has not been in contact with his family for three days. Nor do their bodyguards respond. I only have those facts," said the veteran head of the radio, liquidated by the Kremlin at the beginning of the war.
Sergei Vladimirovich Surovikin (Novosibirsk, 56 years old) had been appointed sole commander of Russian forces in Ukraine in autumn last year to rebuild the front after the setbacks of Kharkiv and Kherson, whose capital he evacuated in an orderly manner. However, he was replaced in January by the dauphin of Shoigu and chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, also a great rival of Wagner's owner. It was a surprise decision, which caused disappointment among the army's own ranks, having managed to stabilize the front on the opposite bank of Kherson.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Surovikin knew of Prigozhin's plans for rebellion. Last Saturday he appeared in a video recorded inside a small room in which he urged the mercenaries to lay down their weapons and leave. Surovikin may not be the only Russian general to have supported Prigozhin's uprising, U.S. officials told The New York Times, saying Wagner's leader would not have launched his uprising unless he believed others in positions of power would come to his aid. Another US media, The Wall Street Journal, reports that Prigozhin's plans were aimed at capturing the Russian defense minister and head of state to gain control of the army, but that he had to advance his movement when he was discovered, Western intelligence sources indicate. However, a Kremlin spokesman on Wednesday called the Times report "rumors and speculation."
"In the context of Prigozhin, apparently [Surovikin] chose his [Prigozhin's] side during the rebellion and grabbed him by the balls," one of the sources told The Moscow Times. Asked where the general is, he gave no details. "We don't even comment on this information through internal channels."
Surovikin had been received in October to applause by the most warmongering Russian sector, including Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. A veteran of Chechnya and Syria, the first dead behind him were Russians: in the communist coup d'état of August 1991 he led the battalion that killed three demonstrators in the center of Moscow, the only victims of that protest.
There are many ruthless actions of this Russian general throughout his career, but the one for which he earned the nickname of The Butcher of Aleppo stands out.Surovikin oversaw the bombing of the city of the same name during the brutal battle of Aleppo that took place there and in which rebel militias and jihadist groups took at the beginning of the uprisings, in 2011. Many then recalled the merciless siege of Grozny in Chechnya.
His last appointment came a few weeks ago, when in the last open crisis between Prigozhin and Shoigu he was appointed as Wagner's liaison with the Russian high command.
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