The star of Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of Russian troops in Ukraine, known as "General Armageddon" for the brutality of his operations, mysteriously faded. He went from being Russia's decorated hero to being suspected of being linked to the Wagner Group rebellion over the weekend. Where is he?
Surovikin was arrested, the Moscow Times reported Thursday, citing two sources close to the Russian Defense Ministry. "The situation with him was not good, for the authorities. I can't say more," one of the sources said.
But the daughter of the decorated general says "no." That nothing happened to his father.
"Honestly, nothing has happened to him. He is at his workplace," Veronika said in a conversation with the Baza Telegram channel.
This November 2022 image shows Sergei Surovikin during a presentation on the situation in Kherson, Ukraine. Photo: EFE
Asked if he is in contact with his father, he replied that "yes, everything is in order."
As for Surovikin's disappearance from the media since last Saturday, the general's daughter clarified that he was not the kind of people who spoke to the media on a daily basis.
"He has never made statements," he said.
"Apparently everything is going as usual ... Everyone is in their places, everything is fine," he said.
Surovikin's wife, however, declined to comment. And the Kremlin was silent.
Prigozhin: "He's the only one who knows how to fight"
"He is the only person with the star of an Army general who knows how to fight. There is no other so sensible and starry," Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the author of the failed armed uprising against power in Moscow over the weekend, said of him in May.
Today Prigozhin would be in Minsk, in "a hotel without windows" so as not to be executed by the Kremlin for his "treason".
"He's the only person with the star of an army general who knows how to fight," Prigozhin said of the general. Photo: EFE
According to The New York Times on Wednesday, Surovikin knew in advance of the plans of the head of the Wagner Group. U.S. officials briefed by U.S. intelligence on the matter have raised questions about Prigozhin's support at the top level.
The Purge
The truth is that, according to Russian media, Surovikin is nowhere to be found and would be part of a purge that Putin launched to avenge the weekend coup.
"General Armageddon" is not the only one "missing." In Syria, fighters from the Wagner group have also reportedly been detained, according to local sources.
Arab and Western media reported on Wednesday that the Russian military and Syrian government forces had detained Wagner company commanders in Syria before taking them to Russia's Khmeimim airbase in Latakia.
According to the pan-Arab daily Al-Araby al-Jadid, a colonel and two lieutenant colonels are among the paramilitary group officers detained "as a preventive measure".
Nor is anything known about the figure currently occupying that post, General Valery Gerasimov, current chief of staff of the Armed Forces and holder of one of Russia's three "nuclear briefcases", according to some Western military analysts.
Gerasimov was one of the heads Prigozhin called for during his failed mutiny, accusing him of being inept and responsible for the debacle of Russian forces at the front in Ukraine.
Putin with General Surovikin in December. Photo: Mikhael Klimentyev/EPA, via Shutterstock
The link between Surovikin and Prigozhin
Surovikin was appointed by the Moscow military leadership as a liaison with Prigozhin at the front after the dialogue with him became untenable due to his constant criticism of the Ministry of Defense.
Those criticisms ended on Saturday with an uprising that took Prigozhin's mercenaries from Ukraine to about 200 km from Moscow, in a coup that left in suspense from Washington to Beijing. No one knew how that rebellion could end. Twelve hours into the start, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko managed to convince Wagner's boss to back down and withdraw from Russia and travel to Minsk.
Surovikin was among the first to urge Wagner to stop the mutiny, but his whereabouts have been unknown since Saturday.
"They grabbed him by the balls"
"Apparently, (Surovikin) chose Prigozhin's side during the uprising, and they grabbed him by the balls," a Defense Ministry source told the Moscow Times.
Putin's confidence in him has been highest so far. Last October he appointed him head of the military campaign in Ukraine.
Putin's confidence in him has been highest so far. Photo: AP
The head of the Kremlin instructed him to turn the tables after the setbacks suffered by his army, since the veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Syria had been stationed on the fronts of Ukraine.
Under his command, Russian troops took control of the city of Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region.
Surovikin's appointment was announced hours after the explosion that on October 8, 2022 damaged the Crimean bridge, considered one of Putin's emblematic works, and key infrastructure for the supply of the peninsula annexed by Russia.
However, in January of this year, he was replaced in command of operations by Valery Gerasimov.
Putin nevertheless left the deputy command of troops in Ukraine.
The relief came amid fierce attacks by Prigozhin on Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Wagner's boss accused of incompetence and denying the Wagnerites supplies of supplies.
"With Surovikin, this did not happen," denounced the businessman, who has said that the general was the only one of the commanders he respected.
A military man with a reputation for ruthlessness
Surovikin's reputation as a tough ruthless soldier dates back to his time as a captain when he commanded a motorized infantry battalion.
Surovikin's reputation as a tough ruthless military man dates back to his time as a captain. Photo: Reuters
Bombing civilians in the Russian campaign in Syria. And he participated in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that accelerated the demise of the Soviet Union, for which he was detained and investigated for seven months.
He was released without charge on the direct orders of Russia's then-president, Boris Yeltsin.
By then he had already worked in Afghanistan as commander of a special forces unit.
In 1995, while studying at the Frunze Military Academy, from which he graduated with honors, he was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term for illegal arms sales, a sentence that was later overturned.
After serving in Tajikistan, in 2002 he graduated, also with honors, from the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
Bald, huge and neckless in sight, he headed the Defense Ministry task force that created the Russian military police.
Sergei Shoigu and Surovikin, in December 2022. Photo: Reuters
In October 2013 he was appointed to the head of the Western military district and two months later, promoted to the rank of colonel general.
Between March and December 2017 he commanded the Russian force grouping in Syria and directed the massive bombing of Syrian cities such as Aleppo controlled by the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
During this campaign he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces and became the first Army officer in Russian history to head that branch of the Armed Forces.
On October 31 that same year, for his role in Syria, Putin conferred on Surovikin the title of Hero of Russia.
"This general has a resume that includes brutalities against civilians in other theaters, in Syria, and we expect more of the same in this theater (Ukraine)," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at the time.
Clarín editorial office with archival information, EFE and ANSA
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