Why the new top commander of Russia in Ukraine has the nickname ‘General Armageddon’?
13 Oct 2022 15:30:17
Moscow, Oct 13: Russia has appointed General Sergey Surovikin as the new top commander of its Ukraine war in what could be an ominous portent of things to come.
Suroviki’s appointment as “commander of the Joint Grouping of Forces in the areas of the special military operation” came on Saturday after Moscow suffered a series of reversals in Ukraine that led to criticism of army leadership from military bloggers, state TV hosts as well as allies.
Until now Surovikin led the “South” forces in Ukraine, according to a Defence Ministry report in July. The name of his predecessor has never been officially revealed, but some Russian media said it was General Alexander Dvornikov — also a general of the Second Chechen War and Russian commander in Syria. But who is Surovikin, also known as ‘General Armageddon’ and ‘the fierce one’ According to the defence ministry website, the 55-year-old Surovikin was born in Siberia’s Novosibirsk in 1966. Surovikin has been described as a ‘ruthless general’ with little regard for civilian casualties. According to Fox News, Surovikin in 1991, in the final months of the Soviet Union, ordered Russian troops to fire on protesters in Moscow. He has been jailed twice – after commanding troops to kill demonstrators in the August 1991 coup and later for illegal arms trade, as per Al Jazeera. As per The Guardian, he has been nicknamed ‘General Armageddon’ for his hard-line and unorthodox approach to waging war. He has combat experience in the 1990s conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya and, more recently, in Syria, where Moscow intervened in 2015 on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He received the title of Hero of Russia and was awarded a medal for his service in Syria where he was commander of the Aerospace Forces, as per Al Jazeera. The Guardian quoted a 2020 Human Rights Watch report as saying Russian forces under Surovikin hit Syrian “homes, schools, healthcare facilities, and markets – the places where people live, work, and study”. “When performing combat missions in Syria, not for a minute did we forget that we were defending Russia,” Surovikin told an assembled crowd of elite army personnel in Moscow in 2017, as per the newspaper.
Days after Surovikin’s appointment, Russia for two days pummelled Ukraine with missiles, damaging energy facilities nationwide, in attacks that President Vladimir Putin said were retaliation for a deadly explosion at the Crimea bridge. Putin called the Kerch Bridge attack an “act of terrorism” and vowed a “tough” response to any further attacks that threaten Russia’s security. “I am not surprised to see what happened this morning in Kyiv. Surovikin is absolutely ruthless, with little regard for human life,” a former defence ministry official who has worked with Surovikin told The Guardian. “I am afraid his hands will be completely covered in Ukrainian blood.”