General Sergei Surovikin, a veteran of Syria, was appointed as the new commander-in-chief of the Kremlin’s troops in Ukraine on the same day the Crimean bridge was sabotaged.
The massacre of civilians in kyiv and other cities in the country has marked the bloody debut of the new commander of Russian troops in Ukraine. Sergei Surovikin was promoted on Saturday, the same day the kyiv Army destroyed the Crimean bridge. Putin himself assured that the massacre on Monday came in response to the destruction of this infrastructure, although various military analysts believe that such an operation should have been planned for weeks.
In any case, Surovikin was the one who executed her. Veteran of the military career, Putin’s new ‘butcher’ intends to apply the terror techniques tested in previous scenarios. He commanded Russian troops in Syria in 2017 and later went on to lead the Kremlin’s aerospace force, which combines air power and missiles. He returned to Syria between March and April 2019, a time when Russian aircraft destroyed the city of Aleppo. Also at that time, chemical weapons were used in Ghouta and a series of bloody military operations were carried out in the Idlib region. The NGO Humans Right Watch places him, in a
2020 reporton a list of individuals responsible for possible war crimes in Idlib, along with other Russian and Syrian commanders.
Graduated from the Omsk Higher Command School in 1987, Surovikin is a career military man. He participated in Afghanistan and the civil war in Taijikistan in the 1990s; in the second Chechen war in the 2000s, in which the Russians crushed Islamist insurgents; In Syria; and now in Ukraine.
Born 55 years ago in Novosibirsk (Siberia), his first public appearance took place in 1991, during the attempted coup after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Three civilians died after soldiers under their charge stormed a barricade. He was imprisoned but six months out of prison thanks to an amnesty.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the ruthless Russian mercenary group Wagner, has described him in recent days as “the most competent commander in the Russian army.” He was sanctioned by the European Union in February, just before the invasion, for his support for actions against “the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence” of Ukraine.
A career soldier, Sergei Surovikin was born in Novosibirsk (Siberia) in 1966. /
Third commander in a week
Until now, he was in charge of directing the Russian troops on the southern front, where the invaders have conquered large tracts of land, especially in Zaporizhia and Kherson, although in recent weeks the Ukrainian counteroffensive is bearing fruit.
What in principle is a prize in the form of internal promotion can, however, be a poisoned candy. Surovikin is the eighth commander of Russian troops so far in the war, the third in just a week since the collapse of the Russian Army in Liman, on the eastern front, where the Ukrainians are rapidly regaining ground.
Precisely his predecessor, whose name has not been made public but British intelligence indicates as Alexander Dvornikov, is also a veteran of Chechnya and Afghanistan. However, harsh setbacks on the ground in recent weeks have prompted Putin to purge his commanders one after another, likely to defuse domestic criticism.
We will have to see how events unfold, but what is certain is that, as in Syria, the anti-aircraft alarms will sound again in Ukraine. A strategy of terror directed against the population as old as war. As in any conflict, those who will pay will be civilians.
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