Who is Russia’s ousted air force chief ‘General Armageddon’?

Russian general Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” for his purported ruthlessness in battle, has reportedly been dismissed from his role as commander of the country’s Aerospace Forces.

He has been replaced by Colonel General Viktor Afzalov, currently head of the main staff of the air force, state news agency RIA Novosti states.

Surovikin is being transferred to a new job and is currently on “short-term leave”, Russian daily newspaper RBC adds.

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Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of a politician linked to President Vladimir Putin, wrote on social media Surovikin had been removed from his post on 18 August “by a closed decree. The family still has no contact with him.”

General Surovikin has not been seen in public since Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group mounted its extraordinary aborted coup on 23 and 24 June. The mercenaries left their posts in southern Ukraine to occupy Rostov-on-Don before marching on Moscow, seemingly in protest against the insufficient supplies of ammunition and resources they had been granted by the defence establishment.

That dramatic uprising was eventually called off after intense negotiations with the Kremlin – to avoid spilling Russian blood in the streets, Mr Prigozhin said – with his forces consenting to stand down while their leader agreed to relocate to Belarus, a condition that he does not subsequently appear to have observed, adding to the air of mystery surrounding the episode.

While the mutiny was ongoing, General Surovikin – who had previously been praised by the outspoken Mr Prigozhin as “a man who is not afraid of responsibility” and tipped to replace Russia’s chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov or defence minister Sergei Shoigu – appeared in a brief video urging the Wagner leader to abandon his manoeuvre. Many observed that the general appeared unwell as he made his appeal, as though acting under duress.

Rumours have since circulated that he knew about the rebellion in advance and supported it and that he has been investigated over his possible complicity.

Asked about the general’s disappearance from public view in the aftermath of the rebellion, Russian politician Andrei Kartapolov said on 12 July that he was “resting” and unavailable, a phrase that sounded chillingly like a cynical euphemism.

Assuming that Mr Surovikin really has been dismissed – and no worse – the sacking completes an astonishing fall from grace for the hulking Siberian, who was promoted less than a year ago to lead Russia’s forces in southern Ukraine before being stood down in January once the fighting had stalled amid the adverse conditions of winter.

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Surovikin was born on 11 October 1966 in Novosibirsk and went on to graduate from the General Staff’s Frunze Military Academy, after which he fought in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine.

Otherwise recognised as a pragmatist unafraid to withdraw his men from the line of fire if he deemed the odds against them to be too great, the general became known for his menacing turn of phrase in regard to the conflict in Chechnya: “For every soldier killed, we will destroy three rebels.”

He was the target of several assassination attempts in that fight, one of which, a bomb blast, left him hospitalised with concussion.

He was sent to Syria in 2017 to lead Russian forces dispatched to prop up incumbent president Bashar al-Assad as he came under attack from rebel groups intent on his removal, helping to turn the civil war in the despot’s favour.

The general’s nickname is said to derive from this period and one incident in particular in which an Islamic State fighter being “interrogated” by Russian troops supposedly cried out in anguish: “This is Armageddon! This is Armageddon!”

While Russia denied targeting civilians in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said its air strikes and often indiscriminate bombing had killed 5,700 civilians in the two years to September 2017.

Mr Surovikin was rewarded for his barbarism with the command of Russia’s Aerospace Forces a month later and named a Hero of the Russian Federation.

By 2021 he was an Army general, equal in rank to Gerasimov.

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When he was appointed to oversee the war in Ukraine’s south last October, Russia had just been routed in northeastern Kharkiv.

General Surovikin quickly realised that, unless his men withdrew from the west bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson, they risked being cut off.

He ordered the tactical retreat of an estimated 30,000 troops, not an easy sell without sparking internal divisions. As they departed the region, his men blew up a strategic bridge to ensure they were not followed.

Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov and Western observers subsequently noted that General Surovikin appeared to have brought greater discipline to the aggressor’s ranks during his tenure and that he had clearly prioritised attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure, disrupting heating, electricity and water supplies.

He has also been “credited” with constructing more than 600 miles of fortifications to slow the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Despite these Russian wins, he was subordinated to Gerasimov in January once the war had begun to stagnate, the fighting having become particularly entrenched around Bakhmut, staying on as one of the latter’s three deputies in charge of the war effort.

Reflecting on the significance of General Surovikin’s dismissal, Professor David Lewis of the University of Exeter said the decision serves as a reminder that Putin is “very much back in charge” after the mutiny and “sends a message that dissent will not be tolerated in the Russian military – or in Russian society more generally”.

Professor Lewis added that it also provides “further proof that loyalty is more highly prized than competence in Putin’s Russia”.

Additional reporting by agencies.