General Sergei Surovikin, a top Russian officer who commanded the Ukraine war last year and who had ties to mutinous Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigzohin, has reportedly been relieved of his command of Russia’s Aerospace Forces.
The reports, which first appeared on August 22 by well-connected veteran Moscow journalist Aleksei Venediktov and subsequently followed up by other local media outlets, indicated that Surovikin had not been fired nor demoted, nor even imprisoned as some observers had expected in the wake of the June rebellion, which was the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.
Surovikin is being replaced temporarily as commander of the Aerospace Forces by General Viktor Aflazov, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti. Aflazov oversaw the forces last year when Surovikin was briefly put in charge of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The reports, which had not been officially confirmed by the Kremlin as of August 23, add further questions to Surovikin’s fate in the aftermath of the mutiny. He has not been seen publicly since the early hours of the June 23 mutiny.
SEE ALSO: All The Kremlin's Men: Russian Officials Drop Out Of Sight, Suggesting Post-Mutiny PurgesKnown as “General Armageddon” for his command of Russian forces during their intervention in the Syria war, Surovikin and his ruthless style of leadership had been championed by Prigozhin and similarly minded hawkish nationalists who have criticized Russia's performance in Ukraine.
After taking over in October, Surovikin ordered a still-ongoing campaign to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure -- electricity grids, water pumping stations -- with Russian missiles and drones. He also ordered a tactical withdrawal of Russian forces from the west bank of the Dnieper River, in the Kherson region, amid Ukrainian advances there.
Prigozhin and former intelligence officer Igor Strelkov had complained that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of Russia’s general staff, General Valery Gerasimov, had botched the war effort, and they called on Putin to declare all-out war and fully mobilize the country to defeat Ukraine.
Surovikin was abruptly removed from command in January, and Gerasimov was put in charge of the overall war effort.
On June 23, soldiers from Prigozhin’s Wagner Group staged a brief mutiny, mostly taking over the southern city of Rostov-On-Don and sending a column of troops racing toward Moscow. The convoy stopped short of the Moscow region after the reported intervention of Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Putin denounced the mutiny, angrily calling its participants traitors and suggesting criminal prosecution and harsh treatment for them.
That has not happened, though.
Prigozhin and some Wagner soldiers met with Putin days later, and Prigozhin has continued to move freely in and out of Russia. In a video released this week, Prigozhin was shown in Africa, where he has sprawling business ventures and a sizable number of Wagner troops have been sent.
Surovikin, meanwhile, appeared in a video in the early hours of the mutiny, calling on Wagner soldiers to call off their revolt. Some experts said the message may have been forced.
Prigozhin overlapped with Surovikin during his tenure in Syria. Wagner troops provided security for oil and gas facilities controlled by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and were involved in a disastrous attack on a Kurdish-controlled oil facility.
Afzalov, meanwhile, was shown on state television briefing Gerasimov last month.