Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a former commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine believed to be near the mercenary warlord Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, was relieved of his duties because the chief of Russia’s Air Force, the Russian state media reported on Wednesday.
The report by RIA Novosti, a Russian state news company, was the clearest signal but that the Kremlin has cracked down on General Surovikin after Mr. Prigozhin’s transient insurrection in June.
“The ex-commander in chief of the Aerospace Forces of Russia, Sergei Surovikin has now been relieved of his post,” RIA Novosti mentioned. It mentioned that Col. Gen. Viktor Afzalov, chief of the air pressure’s basic workers, had been named because the appearing commander.
“Surovikin was relieved of his post in connection with the transfer to another job. He is now on a short vacation,” the RIA report added, citing a report from the Russian news outlet RBC.
Analysts have described General Surovikin, known as “General Armageddon” for his ruthless techniques, as a brutally efficient chief in a Russian army that even many Russian cheerleaders of the struggle have described as troubled by incompetence in its command construction. But his hyperlinks to Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group, which took over a Russian metropolis and started a march on Moscow in its transient mutiny, appeared to precipitate his fall from grace.
General Surovikin has not been seen in public for the reason that insurrection and his whereabouts has remained a thriller. In July, Andrei Kartapolov, the top of the Russian Duma’s protection committee, mentioned that General Surovikin was “taking a rest” in response to questions from a reporter.
U.S. officers imagine that General Surovikin had advance data of Mr. Prigozhin’s insurrection. In the hours after the insurrection started, the Russian authorities rapidly launched a video of the final calling on the Wagner fighters to face down.
Rumors have been circulating amongst Russia’s army bloggers, a few of whom have shut ties to Russian officers and the army, that General Surovikin had been beneath home arrest for the reason that failed mutiny.
The reviews about General Surovikin’s firing are “far from news for people in the know,” wrote Mikhail Zvinchuk, a preferred pro-war Russian blogger who posts beneath the moniker Rybar on the messaging app Telegram. He added that General Surovikin misplaced his job instantly after Mr. Prigozhin’s insurrection.
General Surovikin was appointed to guide what Russian officers describe as its “special military operation” in Ukraine in October 2022 earlier than being relieved of that job in January. In 2015, he commanded Russia’s forces throughout the nation’s intervention in Syria, and he was the top of the Russian air pressure from 2017 onward.
General Surovikin’s substitute, General Afzalov, has been chief of the Air Force’s basic workers since 2018, in accordance with Russian state media, having risen by means of the ranks. He was “directly involved in planning and organizing” the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in accordance with Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s inside ministry, in a submit on the social media platform X, previously often known as Twitter.
General Afzalov had beforehand served because the interim commander of Russia’s air pressure whereas General Surovikin led Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine. Suspicions that General Afzalov had changed General Surovikin had been raised in July, when the previous was proven in official video footage delivering an air pressure report back to General Valery V. Gerasimov, Russia’s high army officer.
Source: www.nytimes.com