2023-06-29 16:05:19
the star of Even Sergei Surovikdeputy commander of the Russian troops in Ukraine, known as the “general Armageddon” by the brutality of their operations, mysteriously turned off. He went from being the decorated hero of Russia to being suspected of being linked to the Wagner Group rebellion over the weekend. Where is?
Surovik too 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,” said one of the sources.
But the daughter of the decorated general says “no.” That nothing happened to her 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 photo shows Sergei Surovikin during a presentation on the situation in Kherson, Ukraine. Photo: EFE
When asked if he is in contact with his father, he replied that “yes, everything is in order.”
Regarding Surovikin’s disappearance from the media since last Saturday, the general’s daughter clarified that he was not the type of person who spoke to the media on a daily basis.
“He has never made statements,” he justified.
“It seems that 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 is the only one who knows how to fight”
“He is the only person with the Army General star who knows how to fight There is no other so sensible and with a star,” the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the author of the failed armed uprising against power in Moscow, said of him in May at the weekend.
Today Prigozhin would be in Minsk, in “a hotel without windows” so as not to be executed by the Kremlin for his “betrayal”.
“He is the only person with the Army general star who knows how to fight,” Prigozhin said of the general. Photo: EFE
As published The New York Times this Wednesday, Surovikin knew in advance about the plans of the head of the Wagner Group. This was said by US officials briefed by US intelligence on the matter, raising questions about the support that Prigozhin had within the high ranks.
the purge
The truth is that, according to the Russian media, Surovikin does not appear anywhere and would be part of a purge that Putin set in motion to avenge the riot of the weekend.
“General Armageddon” isn’t the only one “missing.” In Syria, fighters from the Wagner group have also been detained, according to local sources.
Arab and Western media reported Wednesday that Russian military and Syrian government forces had detained commanders of the Wagner company 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 They are among the officers of the paramilitary group detained “as a preventive measure.”
Nothing is known about the figure who currently occupies that position, el general Valery Gerasimovcurrent 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 that Prigozhin asked for during his botched mutiny, accusing him of being inept and responsible for the debacle of Russian forces on the front lines 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 link with Prigozhin at the front after the dialogue with him became unsustainable due to his constant criticism of the Ministry of Defense.
That criticism ended Saturday with an uprising that drove Prigozhin’s mercenaries from Ukraine to some 200 km from Moscow, in a riot that left Washington to Beijing on edge. No one knew how that rebellion could end. Twelve hours after the start, the President of Belarus, 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 riot, but his whereabouts have been unknown since Saturday.
“They grabbed him by the balls”
“Apparently, (Surovikin) chose the side of Prigozhin during the uprising, and they grabbed him by the balls“A Defense Ministry source told the Moscow Times newspaper.
Putin’s confidence in him has been highest so far. last october 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 commissioned him to turn the tables after the setbacks suffered by his Army, since the veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Syria had stood out on the Ukrainian fronts.
Under his command, Russian troops took control of the city of Severodonetsk, in the Lugansk 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, was replaced in command of the operations by Valeri Guerasimov.
Putin left him nonetheless the deputy command of the troops in Ukraine.
The relay occurred in the middle Prigozhin’s fierce attacks on Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoiguwhom Wagner’s chief accused of incompetence and of denying the Wagnerites supplies of accoutrements.
“With Surovikin, this did not happen”, The businessman then denounced, who has said that the general was the only one of the commanders he respected.
A soldier with a reputation for ruthlessness
Surovikin’s fame as a tough ruthless military man dates back to his time in captain when he commanded a motorized infantry battalion.
Surovikin’s reputation as a tough ruthless military man dates back to his days as a captain. Photo: Reuters
Bombing civilians in the Russian campaign in Syria. And he participated in the death 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 order of then Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Then he had already trained 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 suspended sentence of one year in prison for illegal sale of armssentence that was later annulled.
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 with no neck in sight, led the Ministry of Defense working group that created the Russian military police.
Sergei Shoigu and Surovikin, in December 2022. Photo: Reuters
In October 2013, he was appointed head of the Western military constituency and two months later, promoted to the rank of colonel general.
Between March and December 2017, he commanded the group of Russian forces stationed in Syria and led the massive bombardments against Syrian cities such as Aleppo, then 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 of that same year, for his role in Syria, Putin he 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 writing with archive information, EFE and ANSA
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