Putin dismisses Surovikin as commander of Russian Aerospace Forces – media

This was reported by the Russian media outlet Meduza, citing the words of former Echo of Moscow editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov.

There is currently no official confirmation of this, but Venediktov himself claims that he is referring to a presidential decree.

Journalist Ksenia Sobchak said that, according to her information, Surovikin was dismissed by a private decree on August 18.

The Cheka-OGPU Telegram channel, citing its own sources, claims that Sergei Surovikin is currently under a kind of house arrest in one of his apartments.

"He cannot leave the apartment, but the other day he was allowed to see several subordinates, including General Oleg Palguyev, who actually acts as Surovikin's aide. There is no official investigation, but Surovikin spent a long time in detention answering uncomfortable questions. Currently, a "silence regime" has been put in place for him and his relatives, as Surovikin has been advised to make sure that he is "forgotten", the statement said.

Later, RBC's sources said that "General Sergei Surovikin was dismissed from his post due to a transfer to another job."

"He is currently on a short-term vacation," one of the sources said.

In his turn, General Sobolev, a member of the State Duma from the Communist Party, said that Surovikin had most likely "done something wrong," so the information about his dismissal could very likely be true. 

"This is quite likely. General Surovikin probably did something wrong somewhere. But again, there is no official data on this yet, so I can't deny or confirm it. If this is true, our president will decide what position he will hold," Sobolev said.

Who is Surovikin?

General Sergei Surovikin has been the head of the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine since the beginning of October 2022. In January, he was removed from this position. Surovikin is also called "General Armageddon" because of his criminal orders to bomb Syria.

Earlier, The New York Times, citing US officials familiar with the intelligence, wrote that Surovikin knew in advance about Prigozhin's plans to launch an armed rebellion against Russia's military leadership. Now, the US authorities are trying to find out whether Surovikin helped plan the rebellion.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on the publication and said it was "speculation".

"Now there will be a lot of different speculations, gossip and so on around these events. I think this is one such example," he said.

After the unsuccessful rebellion of Wagner's leader Prigozhin, the media reported that Surovikin had been arrested. Media wrote that he had allegedly supported Prigozhin, although the Russian general had recorded a video calling on the Wagner mercenaries to stop.

The commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces and deputy commander of Russian troops in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, could be arrested after the failed coup by Wagner PMC financier Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Financial Times reported on June 29.  

Instead, Surovikin's daughter Veronika denied the general's arrest in a commentary to a Russian propaganda outlet.

According to British intelligence, after Prigozhin's mutiny, two Russian generals, Sergei Surovikin and Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, no longer appear in public.