by his choice General Sergei Sorovikin – who, according to the British Ministry of Defense, became famous as “corrupt and brutal” – as the new commander of all Russian forces in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin sent a message to the hardliners in Moscow and revealed his plan with harsh responses on the front lines.
55-year-old Surovkin He led the Russian military campaign in Syria in 2017., where he was accused of planning to bomb most of the city of Aleppo. “In the military operations in Syria, we have not forgotten for a moment that we are defending Russia,” the general said, in the presence of senior Russian officers at a ceremony in Moscow five years ago.
The general’s “defense” for Russia included dozens of air and ground strikes against infrastructure and civilian targets, according to a Human Rights Watch report two years ago, which said Russian forces led by Sorovikin bombed “Syria’s homes, schools, hospitals, and markets — places where people live and work.” And they study.”
On Monday morning, just two days after he was named the new commander of Russian operations in Ukraine, General Surovkin repeated the tactics he used in Syria with missile strikes. They spread terror and death in Kyiv And in other Ukrainian cities, including a pedestrian bridge, a park with a playground and a large intersection next to the university.
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“I am not surprised by what happened in Kyiv. Sorovikin is completely unconcerned with the value of human life,” a former British Ministry of Defense official who previously worked with the Russian general told the Guardian, adding: “I am afraid he has Ukrainian blood on his hands.”
The path of “General Armageddon”
Surovkin’s name first appeared during the coup of Soviet militants in 1991, when he led a squad that crossed pro-democracy barriers, killing three people.
The current general’s reputation took hold in 2004 when Russian media reported that a colonel under his command committed suicide after Sorovkin severely reprimanded him. His colleagues have since dubbed him “General Armageddon” for the harsh and unorthodox tactics he applies to wars.
Experts say Sorovikin’s main challenge in Ukraine will be to provide solutions to the structural problems plaguing Russian forces while facing a Ukrainian counter-offensive. A former squadron commander who worked with Sorovikin until 2020, said the new general was one of the few in the army who knew him from commanding various branches of the armed forces.
“He is a very brutal commander but also a capable commander. But it will not be able to solve all the problems, as Russia suffers from a shortage of weapons and manpower,” said Gleb Irisov, noting that previous amendments and general alternatives failed to change much for Putin’s forces in Ukraine. .
Putin’s message to hardliners
However, the selection of General Sorovikin partly helped to calm the anger of some Russian hardliners, who were grumbling about military failures on the Ukrainian fronts.
Since taking command of Russian forces in Syria, Sorovikin has developed a good working relationship with the notorious mercenary organization Wagner Group, according to Irisov, and his appointment has been enthusiastically received by critics of Ukraine’s failures, such as the Chechen leader. And Putin’s recently promoted public ally, Ramzan Kadyrov And the head of the Wagner Group is Yevgeny Prigozhin. “Now I am 100% satisfied with the” operation “, Kadyrov wrote in a telegram, referring to the bombing of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
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