President Putin and Commander-in-Chief Surovikin at a ceremony to encourage troops to participate in the war in Syria. yunhap news
The British daily Guardian reported that there is controversy over the strength of Army General Sergei Surovikin, 56, who was appointed commander-in-chief of Russia’s joint forces in the invasion of Ukraine on the 8th (local time).
Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced on the same day that Surovikin had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian “special military operations” region of the joint forces. He is a veteran veteran who served as the commander of the military district in eastern Russia and the commander of the Syrian contingent unit.
Surovikin also serves as the commander of Russian aerospace and space, and in the invasion of Ukraine, he succeeded General Aleksandr Dvornikov, who was sacked this summer, as commander of the Southern Military District on the Ukrainian Front.
The Guardian quoted a British intelligence report that came out around the time Surovikin was transferred as commander of the Southern Military District. “He said.
According to the Guardian, Surovikin has been jailed twice since he was commissioned in 1987, for selling weapons and for issuing orders to fire at pro-democracy protesters.
Among them, the order of fire was the case in August 1991 when conservatives in the Soviet Union staged a coup. At the time, Captain Surovikin commanded a rifle squad to break through a barricade set by the pro-democracy protesters and issue an order to fire. In the process, three protesters were killed, one of whom was crushed.
“It is very symbolic that Sergei Surovikin is leading this last effort to revive the Soviet Union,” said Russian political scientist and sociologist Grigory Yudin, noting that Surovikin was the only officer to issue an order to fire in August 1991. ‘ he told The Guardian.
“These people knew what they were doing back then (August 1991), and they know it now,” Yudin added.
When Surovikin led the Russian army’s expedition to Syria in 2017, it caused controversy with indiscriminate bombardment against anti-government forces.
When Syrian government forces were on the brink of defeat, Russia, who intervened in the civil war, was embroiled in a war crime controversy, claiming that it bombarded rebel areas with conventional bombs, both civilians and soldiers.
Some observers say that the Russian government’s appointment of Surovikin as commander-in-chief in charge of the entire Ukrainian front was in order to please the hardline Russian nationalists.
Some Russian nationalists argue that the unsuccessful operation of the invasion of Ukraine is due to the mismanagement of the Russian military command and not using the harsh tactics necessary to subdue Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozin, who runs the mercenary group ‘Wagner Group’ and the catering company ‘Concord’, said in a statement through Concord, “Surovikin is the most capable commander in the Russian army.” ‘ he praised him.
“(August 1991, during the coup of the conservatives in the Soviet Union), it was the same officer who did not hesitate to take a tank and went out to save the country,” said Prigogin.