Sergey Surovikin

He was assigned to a spetsnaz unit and served in the Soviet–Afghan War.[14]

By August 1991, he was a captain and commander of the 1st Motor Rifle Battalion of the 15th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, part of the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division. During the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt in Moscow, Surovikin was ordered to send his battalion into the tunnel on the Garden Ring, where three anti-coup demonstrators were killed.[15] After the defeat of the coup, Surovikin was arrested and held under investigation for seven months. The charges were dropped on 10 December because Boris Yeltsin[16] concluded that Surovikin was only following orders. He was promoted to the rank of major afterwards.[17]

Surovikin attended the Frunze Military Academy. In September 1995, he was sentenced to a year of probation by the Moscow garrison's military court for illegally selling weapons. The conviction was overturned after the investigation concluded that Surovikin had agreed to give a fellow student a pistol for use in a competition, unaware of its intended purpose.[18][19]

In 1995, he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy. Surovikin participated in the Tajikistani Civil War where he commanded a motor rifle battalion. He then became chief of staff of the 92nd Motor Rifle Regiment, chief of staff and commander of the 149th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment and chief of staff of the 201st Motor Rifle Division.[14]

In 2002, he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff. He became commander of the 34th Motor Rifle Division at Yekaterinburg.[13]

In March 2004, Surovikin was accused by Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Tsibizov of beating him up for leaving his post to participate in elections as an observer.[20] In April, division deputy commander for armaments Colonel Andrei Shtakal shot himself in the presence of Surovikin and the district deputy commander after being criticized by Surovikin.[14] In both cases, a military prosecutor found no evidence of guilt.[18]

Surovikin at a graduation of officers at the Air Force Academy in Voronezh, 2019

From June 2004, he led the 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, permanently stationed in Chechnya to suppress the insurgency during the Second Chechen War.[21][13] After nine soldiers from the division died in the collapse of a farm building on 21 February 2005, an incident officially blamed on an insurgent-fired rocket-propelled grenade, Surovikin publicly promised to "destroy three insurgents for every soldier killed," in spite of the policy that required insurgents to be handed over to authorities.[22] Investigation by independent news organization Novaya Gazeta revealed that the deaths were caused by the accidental discharge of a grenade launcher by drunk soldiers.[23][24] In an April interview with army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, Surovikin complained that rules of engagement, especially the requirement to detain suspected militants instead of shooting them, hindered counter-insurgency operations, and that Chechen fighters were exploiting Russian soldiers' hesitation to fire on insurgents near civilians.[21] For his rhetoric, he gained a reputation in the press as a tough commander with an "iron fist."[25]

In June, Surovikin ordered the Borozdinovskaya cleansing operation to "search for and detain insurgents," in which soldiers of the division's Vostok Battalion burned down houses, beat 87 civilians, killed one elderly man, and abducted eleven civilians.[26] Surovikin categorically denied that the abductions took place,[27] but the company commander responsible was convicted of abuse of power.[28]

Returning from Chechnya, Surovikin was appointed deputy commander of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army in Voronezh in November 2005, rising to serve as its chief of staff from May 2006 and army commander from April 2008.[13][29]

In November 2008, Surovikin became head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff.[30] In January 2010, he became chief of staff of the Volga–Urals Military District, which soon became part of the Central Military District.[13]

From November 2011, he headed the working group charged with creation of the Military Police.[31] It was reported that Surovikin was tipped to head the Military Police after it was instituted, but the appointment did not materialise due to the intervention of the Russian Military Prosecutor's Office, according to the Russian media, which presented the situation as a turf conflict between the Defence Ministry and the Military Prosecutor's Office.[32][18] In October 2012, he became the chief of staff of the Eastern Military District. In October 2013, he was appointed commander of the district.[13] On 13 December, Surovikin was promoted to the rank of colonel general.[33]

Surovikin (left) with Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, Bashar al-Assad and Syrian Minister of Defence Ali Ayyoub in 2017

On 9 June 2017, he was introduced to news media representatives as the Commander of the Russian armed forces deployed to Syria.[34][35] Reportedly, he took this position in March 2017.[36]

Surovikin (left) with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov in 2018

In September 2017, Surovikin was cited by Russian media as a likely successor to Viktor Bondarev, who was on 26 September relieved of the position of the Commander of the Aerospace Forces.[37][5] According to a report published by RBK Group on 2 November 2017 that cited an anonymous source in the MoD, Surovikin had been appointed Commander of the Aerospace Forces, despite his initial objections.[38] At the end of November 2017, the Russian MoD's Krasnaya Zvezda reported that Surovikin had been appointed Commander of the Aerospace Forces by a presidential decree of 22 November.[39] TASS pointed out that Surovikin became the first combined-arms commander in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union to be put in charge of the Russian or Soviet air forces.[40]

On 28 December 2017, he was made a Hero of the Russian Federation for his leadership of the Group of Forces in Syria.[41] Under his command, a significant turning point in the fight against the Syrian opposition was achieved. The Syrian Government regained over 50% control of Syria by the end of 2017 after a string of successful military campaigns. According to several Russian military commentators, it was Surovikin who turned the tide of the war.[42][43][44][45]

Surovikin took command of the contingent of Russian military forces in Syria again from January to April 2019. Altogether he commanded the Russian forces group in Syria for more than a year, which was longer than any other officer[46] until November 2020, when Lieutenant General Aleksandr Chaiko surpassed his duration in that post.

An October 2020 Human Rights Watch report listed Surovikin as one of the commanders "who may bear command responsibility for violations" during the 2019–2020 offensive in Idlib, Syria.[47]

In 2021, Surovikin was promoted to General of the Army. As one of only a handful of officers at that rank, it prompted speculation that he might be an eventual successor to Valery Gerasimov as Chief of the General Staff.[48]

Surovikin in December 2022

In June 2022, it came to light that he was in command of the Southern Grouping of Forces of the Russian Armed Forces in the Southern Ukraine campaign.[7] On 28 September, he was awarded the title Hero of the Luhansk People's Republic.[49] On 8 October, it was announced that he would be commanding all Russian forces in Ukraine, succeeding Colonel General Gennady Zhidko.[8] On 18 October Surovikin was reported as saying that "The situation in the area of the 'Special Military Operation' can be described as tense".[50] He said in an interview with Russian media that "Our opponent is a criminal regime, while we and the Ukrainians are one people and want the same thing: for Ukraine to be a country that’s friendly to Russia and independent from the West".[51][52] According to sources close to the Kremlin, Surovikin is a proponent of large-scale attacks on civilian and critical infrastructure.[6] He is also the eponym of the Surovikin line, a line of trenches, minefields, and other fortifications which Russia built ahead of the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive.[53][54][55]

On 9 November 2022, in a televised meeting with Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, Surovikin, made a public statement on Russian media—along with other military staff—recommending a withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson in order to save Russian troops who faced being trapped. In the same TV appearance, Shoigu approved the withdrawal.[56] On 11 January 2023, Valery Gerasimov took over from Surovikin as commander of all Russian forces in Ukraine, with Surovikin becoming one of his deputies.[57]

In May 2023, Surovikin was reported to have been "representing interests" of the Wagner Group in Russia's Ministry of Defense for the last few years.[58] According to CNN, documentary evidence listed Surovikin as an official member of Wagner, with VIP status in 2018, along with 30 other senior Russian military staff.[11][59]

On 24 June 2023, during the Wagner Group rebellion against the Russian government, Surovikin appeared on video posted to Telegram appealing to the rebel forces to stop the revolt.[60] He has not appeared in public since the event.[61] Some reports suggest that he was arrested, citing anonymous defense ministry officials.[10] Surovikin's daughter, in an alleged interview to a Russian Telegram channel, claimed to be in contact with her father and insisted that he had not been detained.[12] The Wall Street Journal reported on 13 July that Surovikin had been detained, according to "people familiar with the situation."[62] State Duma defense committee chairman Andrey Kartapolov told the media that Surovikin was "on vacation and unavailable,"[63] while Readovka reported that Surovikin was on vacation in Rostov.[64] Reports of his imprisonment were repeatedly denied by the secretary of the Moscow prison watchdog committee.[65]

As of 6 September, Surovikin's biography has been removed from the official ministry of defense website since his disappearance.[66]

In February 2022, Surovikin was added to the European Union sanctions list for being "responsible for actively supporting and implementing actions and policies that undermine and threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine as well as the stability or security in Ukraine".[68]