On Wednesday, state news agency RIA Novosti cited “an informed source” who said Surovikin had been “relieved of his post” and replaced by Col. Gen. Viktor Afzalov, the Air Force chief of staff, marking the first time official Russian sources reported on Surovikin’s status.
For weeks, speculation swirled about the general’s whereabouts, as he has not been seen since he recorded an address urging Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin, whose bitter feud with Russian top brass has spilled into open confrontation, to stop his fighters from marching on Moscow on June 24.
Following the mutiny, the Kremlin went into overdrive to consolidate control and establish whether Prigozhin had support from the upper reaches of Russia’s military or security services. Surovikin was reportedly held for questioning and prevented from having any contacts with his family.
Surovikin was known to have good relations with Prigozhin, who repeatedly praised the general as one of the few competent Russian commanders and thanked him for his support in sorting out Wagner’s demands for more ammunition during the protracted battle for Bakhmut.
During his brief three-month tenure as the overall commander in Ukraine, Surovikin was credited with switching Moscow forces to a defensive approach following a series of stunning setbacks, preparing them for the counteroffensive and refocusing the operation on strengthening the grip on occupied territories in the four Ukrainian regions Russia illegally declared its own.
Surovikin made his name while leading the Russian operation in Syria, where his brutal tactics, including the wholesale bombardment of rebel-held cities, earned him the Armageddon nickname.
Surovikin was also popular among Russian hard-liners who, like Prigozhin, criticized Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov for failing to achieve significant success on the front line and regarded Surovikin as a brutal but competent commander.
A well-connected veteran journalist, Alexei Venediktov, first reported news of Surovikin’s firing, adding that the general was assigned a new position within the Defense Ministry, which did not officially confirm the appointment.
A demotion constitutes a relatively soft punishment in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, who is known for using harsh tactics to root out any whiff of treachery, but is in line with how the Kremlin has dealt with generals who have fallen out of favor in the past — quietly moving them to less prestigious posts to avoid public scrutiny and admission of trouble in the ranks.
The Defense Ministry saw several major reshuffles during the first year of the war as it strove to fix a chaotic chain of command and remove generals responsible for the failure to realize Putin’s hopes for a lightning campaign in Ukraine.
Surovikin’s predecessor as the overall commander in Ukraine, Col. Gen. Alexander Chaiko, was sacked in October, a firing British intelligence linked to his failures at the very beginning of the war, and sent to Syria.
Col. Gen. Andrey Serdyukov, a four-decade serviceman and the commander in chief of the elite airborne troops, met a similar fate when he was stripped of his post after nearly all his forces suffered major losses in the first months of the war.
Overall, at least 12 high-ranking military officials have been fired or reappointed since the beginning of the war, but none of them were publicly criticized by Putin for strategic failures.
Prigozhin himself seemingly escaped punishment despite the Russian leader calling him a traitor in a public address. Under a deal brokered by Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin and Wagner have been able to relocate to Belarus and continue operations across Africa.
Former deputy defense minister Mikhail Mizintsev, who was responsible for logistics and materiel, was another high-ranking official who sympathized with Wagner and even joined the group after his firing in April, but little is known about his current whereabouts.
The new Air Force commander, Afzalov, had been in his post as chief of staff for at least four years, according to the British Ministry of Defense, and stepped in for Surovikin while he was managing operations in Ukraine. In mid-July, Afzalov made a rare TV appearance alongside Gerasimov, indicating his growing prominence in the military structure.
