It’s unclear whether or not Monday’s barrage, which continued to a lesser diploma Tuesday, marked a shift in ways that may characterize the conflict for months to return.
However Surovikin, whose appointment was introduced by Russia’s Protection Ministry on Saturday, is most assuredly tasked with shifting outcomes on the battlefield, the place Russian forces have suffered a string of setbacks, together with a close to whole rout within the northeastern Kharkiv area and territorial losses all through areas that Putin decreed annexed in violation of worldwide legislation.
Surovikin, 56, who earned the nickname “Normal Armageddon” in Syria, is the primary overarching commander of the onslaught in Ukraine to be designated publicly by the Russian authorities.
The announcement coincided with the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, a monument to Moscow’s 2014 land seize of the Crimean Peninsula and a pet mission for Putin that has served as an important conduit from Russia to the battlefield for troops, weapons, gear and different provides.
Simply two days after the bridge blast, which Putin has blamed on Ukraine’s particular companies, Moscow unleashed “high-precision, long-range weapons from the air, sea and land” to bombard Kyiv, Dnipro and different Ukrainian cities through the morning rush hour. It was most likely one of many first orders given with Surovikin formally in his new position.
Such a cruel bombing represents a method of warfare just like that for which Russian generals grew to become notorious through the 2015 incursion into Syria, when Moscow despatched hundreds of troops to prop up the federal government of Bashar al-Assad. The aerial bombardments left Syrians reeling and triggered widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure. Some Ukrainians are fearful they are going to now endure the identical destiny.
Surovikin didn’t invent these ways, nor was he the one commander to supervise them — however he was significantly profitable. In recognition, Putin awarded Surovikin the Hero of the Russian Federation medal, the nation’s highest honor.
“He’s being referred to as the ‘Butcher of Syria,’ however each common that took that publish was a butcher of Syria,” mentioned Kirill Mikhailov, a researcher with the Battle Intelligence Group (CIT), which has been monitoring Russian navy actions since 2014. “It’s a job you are taking as a result of killing individuals and making their life depressing is what the Russian air power can do greatest.”
Surovikin’s first tour in Syria occurred in March 2017 and was speculated to final about three months as Moscow sought to offer firsthand fight expertise to as many high-ranking officers as doable. However Surovikin ended up overseeing the marketing campaign till the tip of the 12 months and was promoted to air power commander, regardless of transferring up the ranks as a military common main tank and different varieties of models.
The Russian Protection Ministry repeatedly credited Surovikin with attaining important good points in Syria, saying that Russian and Syrian forces “liberated over 98 p.c” of the nation underneath him.
“The Syrian military underneath him lifted the siege of the strategic metropolis of Deir al-Zour and recaptured Palmyra for the second and final time, which was fairly an essential a part of the struggle in opposition to ISIS,” Mikhailov mentioned, referring to the Islamic State terrorist group. “The factor particular to Surovikin is that he truly fought with ISIS, which you may say is a extra formidable enemy than simply Syrian rebels.”
A 2020 Human Rights Watch report mentioned that air and floor assaults on civilian websites, together with properties, colleges and hospitals, have been a trademark of Russia’s marketing campaign in Idlib, which Surovikin participated in throughout his second tour in 2019. The report listed him as one of many commanders “who might bear command accountability for violations” through the Idlib offensive.
Professional-Kremlin media retailers lionized him as “Normal Armageddon.”
“He obtained this unofficial nickname from colleagues for his skill to assume exterior the field and act robust,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote in a June profile.
In Ukraine, Surovikin led the South grouping of forces, which was answerable for the Luhansk area in japanese Ukraine, and he’s credited with capturing the cities of Hirske and Zolote in June and subsequently Lysychansk, the final main Ukrainian-held metropolis within the hotly contested space.
Most lately, the CIT mentioned, Surovikin was rumored to be key in holding the road of Russian defenses within the southern Kherson area, the place Moscow’s troops have been compelled to retreat from the western financial institution of the Dnieper River however the place the entrance has not crumbled as shortly because it did close to Kharkiv within the northeast.
It isn’t clear when Russian navy chiefs determined to place Surovikin accountable for the general conflict. Russia reportedly appointed no less than two earlier commanders in its practically eight-month conflict, however there have been no official bulletins, and every apparently lasted just some weeks as Russian forces suffered strategic failures and heavy casualties.
Surovikin, because the chief of one of many largest groupings of forces, may need been in cost for a while now regardless of the absence of any public acknowledgment, Michael Kofman, the director of Russia research at CNA, a protection analysis institute based mostly in Virginia, instructed in a tweet.
Surovikin first achieved notoriety at age 24, through the failed coup in opposition to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. Then holding the rank of captain, he led a motorized rifle battalion that drove via barricades arrange by protesters exterior the Russian White Home.
Units underneath Surovikin’s command killed three civilians — Dmitry Komar, Ilya Krichevsky and Vladimir Usov. After the failed coup, Surovikin was jailed for a number of months however then was freed and by no means convicted of any crime as prosecutors in Moscow dominated that he was merely obeying an order, the Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in 2011.
Surovikin’s loyalty to the armed forces of their futile try to save lots of the Soviet Union from inevitable collapse has been celebrated by modern-day Russian hard-liners who see the conquest of Ukraine as a steppingstone to the restoration of the Russian empire.
“Surovikin is a legendary particular person; he was born to faithfully serve the Motherland,” Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the St. Petersburg businessman who based the Wagner personal navy firm and has recruited prisoners to function mercenaries and bolster Russian ranks in Ukraine, mentioned in an announcement. “All of us keep in mind the occasions on the White Home in August 1991, and Surovikin was the officer who obtained an order and with out hesitation obtained right into a tank and rushed to save lots of his nation.”
Some 30 years later, Surovikin was promoted to common of the military, the second-highest navy rank in Russia, which is achieved by only a handful of officers. His promotion led to hypothesis that he may be an eventual successor to Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the final employees.
All through Surovikin’s profession, the Russian media has described him as a harsh and, sometimes, ruthless chief.
“Within the military, he is called an ardent supporter of unity of command and putting in order with an ‘iron fist,’ ” Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in 2008 when Surovikin was appointed chief of the primary operational directorate of the Russian common employees.
Based on a 2004 report within the enterprise each day Kommersant, a colonel serving underneath him killed himself after a heated dressing-down he obtained from Surovikin. The identical report mentioned a lieutenant colonel from Surovikin’s division despatched a criticism to the navy prosecutor’s workplace accusing Surovikin and different officers of beating him due to political variations.
“He’s recognized to be fairly harsh and merciless, so he’s not a really nice commander to have, as I perceive,” Mikhailov mentioned. “Nonetheless, when a commander is being chosen, the essential half will not be even some tactical acumen or the impression he has on the subordinates — however the one he has on the superiors together with a notion that he’s ready to struggle an actual conflict.”
Surovikin has formally taken the helm with the Russian invasion arguably at its lowest level because it began on Feb. 24. A Ukrainian counteroffensive routed Russian forces from key strongholds within the east. Moscow’s troops are exhausted. And a mobilization supposed to name up tons of of hundreds of reinforcements has led to an exodus of fighting-age males from the nation, in addition to studies by conscripts that they’re ill-equipped and receiving poor coaching.
Monday’s heavy missile bombardment has been praised by pro-Kremlin navy correspondents who in current weeks had been talking in defeated tones about Ukraine’s battlefield good points.
“New assaults on important infrastructure in Vinnytsia area, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv area, Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne, Odessa area, Khmelnytsky,” widespread conflict reporter and blogger Alexander Kots crowed on his Telegram weblog on Tuesday, itemizing Ukrainian cities focused by Russian missiles. “In honor of Normal Surovikin’s birthday, we ask the radio to play ‘Don’t cease me now’ by Queen.”
Late Tuesday, the Kremlin mentioned Putin had telephoned Surovikin to congratulate him on his birthday.
Russian and Western navy specialists, nevertheless, warning that the jubilation amongst hard-line voices in Moscow is more likely to be short-lived as personnel modifications and air assaults on Ukrainian cities fail to unravel extra entrenched issues within the Russian navy.
“Shuffling senior commanders is not going to repair the systemic issues which have hamstrung Russian operations, logistics, protection business, and mobilization from the outset of the invasion,” the Institute for the Research of Struggle, a Washington-based assume tank, mentioned in a current evaluation. Putin “can solely hope thereby to cease the Ukrainian counteroffensives for a time,” it added.
