Russian General Sergei Surovikin, dismissed as head of the Russian Aerospace Forces after the armed rebellion of the Wagner Group led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been appointed president of the Coordination Commission on Air Defense Affairs of the Commonwealth of Independent States ( CEI), the Eurasia Daily agency reported today.
According to this source, the appointment of Surovikin, who had been missing since June 24, the day of the Wagnerite mutiny, and who had reappeared on the 4th in public with his wife, was unanimously adopted by the representatives of the Council of Defense Ministers of the post-Soviet CIS.
He had been missing since June 24
Since the rebellion of Wagner’s boss, Yevegeny Prigozhin, whom Surovikin urged to abort the uprising, the press and social media had speculated about the general’s condition and whereabouts.
Surovikin fell into disgrace after the failed armed rebellion led by Prigozhin, who said at the time that the general was the only one he respected.
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Both had designed the operation to take the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut (Donetsk), something that the mercenaries achieved last May.
When criticizing the General Staff and the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, Prigozhin assured that with Surovikin in command his men would never have had problems with the supply of equipment and ammunition, for which he repeatedly blamed the first two.
Surovikin, nicknamed ‘general Armageddon’
The Kremlin never confirmed the general’s arrest for his ties to the then head of the Wagner Group.
On the morning of the same day that Prigozhin’s private plane crashed, it was learned that Surovikin had been replaced as head of the Aerospace Forces by General Victor Afzalov.
Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” for the harshness with which he conducted Russian military operations in Syria, assumed leadership of the troops fighting in Ukraine in October of last year, but after ordering the withdrawal of the northern third of the Ukrainian region of Kherson was replaced in January 2023 by the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov.
