Surovikin was removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces – Kommersant

Army General Sergei Surovikin relieved of his post as Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces RBC with reference to sources and ex-editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow Alexei Venediktov (recognized as a foreign agent). Sergei Surovikin has held this post since October 31, 2017. However, he will continue to serve in the Ministry of Defense. According to RBC, the general is currently on a “short-term leave”.

Sergei Surovikin has not appeared in public since the night of June 23. Then he recorded a video message to the fighters of the PMC “Wagner” with a call to return to their places of deployment. On that night, PMC units advanced on a “march of justice” to Moscow. Since then, officials and the press service of the Ministry of Defense have not reported anything about the whereabouts of Sergei Surovikin. The head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that it was through him that communication with the ministry was carried out.

June 27 newspaper New York Times citing sources, she said that Mr. Surovikin could have known about the plans of the Wagner PMC fighters to organize a rebellion. Later sources Bloomberg stated that the military prosecutor’s office interrogated Sergei Surovikin for several days due to suspicions of his ties with the founder of the PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Kremlin called this information speculation. The Public Monitoring Commission of Moscow after reports of the possible detention and arrest of Mr. Surovikin statedthat the general is not in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center and other capital detention facilities.

On October 8, 2022, Sergei Surovikin was appointed commander of the joint group of special operations troops in Ukraine. In November, he proposed to withdraw troops from Kherson. In January 2023, he was removed from this position and appointed deputy commander.