General Sergei Surovikin, infamous for shooting Moscow protesters in 1991, is latest candidate to take charge of failing Ukraine invasion
A Russian general described by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) as “brutal and corrupt” has been appointed overall commander of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation”.
General Sergei Surovikin’s promotion comes amid growing criticism of Putin’s top military brass as their troops are facing repeated setbacks at the hands of their Ukrainian counterparts.
Greg Yudin, head of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, said that the promotion of the ruthless Gen. Surovikin, who has earned a reputation for cruelty and corruption, was designed to send a message.
“It is highly symbolic that Sergei Surovikin, the only officer who ordered the shooting of revolutionaries in August 1991 and actually killed three people, is now in charge of this last-ditch effort to restore the Soviet Union,” he said.
Earlier this year, the British MoD said Gen. Surovikin was “dogged with allegations of corruption and brutality”.
Four years after he ordered soldiers to shoot protesters in Moscow in 1991, Gen. Surovikin was found guilty of stealing and selling weapons. He was sentenced to prison although he was let off following allegations that he was framed.
Like Russia’s other generals, Gen. Surovikin, 55, earned a fearsome reputation in 2017 in Syria where Putin propped up the regime of his ally Bashar al-Assad by bombing Aleppo.
Since the start of August, Ukrainian forces equipped with US long-range artillery, Western intelligence and British infantry training have pushed Russian forces back from around Kharkiv in the north-east and near Kherson in the south.
Russian bloggers and online propagandists have accused Russian military commanders of incompetence but they also welcomed Gen. Surovikin’s appointment.
“Surovikin does not stand on ceremony with stupid commanders,” Rybar, a Russian military blogger, told his one million subscribers on Telegram.
Putin has tinkered with his top generals and military command structure throughout his war in Ukraine, after he launched the invasion on Feb 24.
Initially, there was no overall commander of Russian forces but after his armies were repelled from Kyiv in March, the Russian leader appointed Gen. Alexander Dvornikov as top commander.
Gen. Dvornikov lasted only two and a half months in the job, although no replacement was initially announced in June when he was sacked. Now Gen. Surovikin takes over with Russia looking increasingly weak.
Russia’s top military units are seriously depleted, morale is low and a mobilisation effort has been badly handled.
And Western analysts said that whoever was appointed as Russia’s top commander in Ukraine was likely to fail, partly because of Putin’s micro-managing.
“I can’t imagine how swapping around generals is going to help. Putin’s problem is he doesn’t have a Zhukov, someone that’s both willing to stand up to him and someone he respects,” said James Rushton, a British military analyst.
Georgy Zhukov was the Red Army’s Field Marshall during World War II.
Kherson region evacuates citizens
In another sign of how badly the war is going for the Kremlin, officials in the occupied-Kherson region announced a partial evacuation of citizens to Russia.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, also said that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station had lost its last source of power and was relying on emergency generators after being shelled.
Both Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for shelling. Russia has controlled the power station since the start of the war. The reactors at the power station have been shut down but the plant needs electricity for security and safety procedures.
