The explosion on the Crimean Bridge? the “General Armageddon handles the answer”, wrote, as if to reassure its readers, the popular daily Moskovski Komsomolets just the day before the rain of missiles that fell on Ukraine on October 10. This is how this tabloid calls the new commander of the “special operation” in Ukraine, army general Sergei Surovikin, appointed barely a week ago and who already seems to be making his mark on the conduct of war. “These massive salvos on civilian infrastructure, it’s his way of working, his style”commented for his part Andryi Youssov, the boss of the intelligence service of the Ukrainian army, quoted by the site Ukrainian Truth.
Barely 55 years old, Sergei Surovikin is probably one of the most senior generals in Russia. He owes his nickname of “General Armageddon” to his exploits in Syria, where he commanded the Russian detachment that came to the aid of the regime of Bashar El-Assad. “His peers called him that for his ability to act unconventionally and brutally,” laconically tells the military correspondent of another popular Russian newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. “He is devoid of all feelings”, confirms a source close to the Kremlin to the opposition newspaper Medusa, based in Latvia. In a 2020 report, the NGO Human Rights Watch implicated General Sourovikine in several attacks on residential areas, chemical bombings and airstrikes on hospitals in Syria.
Pans and shaded areas
Sourov, means “severe” in Russian, and it is indeed as a badass that the new boss of the Russian troops in Ukraine likes to present himself. It was present in many theaters of war, starting with Afghanistan, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Syria and now Ukraine. His appointment was hailed by the fiercest critics of the army. “Our army in Ukraine is now in good hands”, immediately reacted the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. “He is the most capable commander in the Russian army”added Evgueni Prigojine, boss of the Wagner mercenary group.
Sourovikine’s career is also punctuated by numerous scandals and gray areas, does not fail to raise Radio Svoboda. His first feat of arms seems to be the death of three demonstrators during the putsch of 1991. In charge of the repression of pro-Yeltsin militants, he allegedly drove into the crowd in his armored car – which earned him to spend seven months remanded in custody before the charge was dropped for lack of evidence. In 1995, he was again in the dock, this time for a dark case of a service pistol resold on the black market. Verdict: one year in prison.
Then other saucepans were added in the 2000s: of a bloodthirsty nature, Sourovikine regularly came to blows with his subordinates, which led one of them, Colonel Andreï Chtokal, to shoot himself in the head in his office. Added to this are accusations of human rights violations, particularly in Chechnya and Syria, but, as noted Svoboda, all this never prevented his rise to the top of the military hierarchy. Quite the contrary.