As Russia rained shells and missiles in civilian regions in Ukraine and Western officers organized to fulfill at NATO headquarters to talk about methods to maintain navy help to the authorities in Kyiv, there has been hypothesis over a likely hyperlink among the latest dramatic escalation withinside the strugglefare and the appointment of a brand new commander of the Russian forces. The Kremlin on Saturday (October 8) introduced the appointment of General Sergei Surovikin, a 55-year-antique veteran of numerous excessive and complicated battles such as as chief of the Russian forces in Syria, and a person with a popularity for ruthlessness and brutality.
His fearsome battlefield report had earned Surovikin nicknames including the “fierce one” and “General Armageddon”, the ‘Financial Times’ stated in a record. ‘The Guardian’ record defined him as the “infamous fashionable who opened hearthplace on pro-democracy protesters withinside the 1990s”, and ‘The New York Times’ quoted a Human Rights Watch record from 2020 setting him many of the navy leaders who would possibly have had “command responsibility” for human rights violations in Syria.
On February 23 this year, an afternoon earlier than Russian troops marched into Ukraine, Gen. Surovikin become placed on a listing of people sanctioned through the European Union, Western media reviews stated. “Surovikin is like Marshal Zhukov,” the ‘Financial Times’ record quoted Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Moscow-primarily based totally assume tank Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, as saying. “He is a difficult man who is aware of the way to run a strugglefare. He’s a actual beast, now no longer a few dumb vodka-ingesting man or a pseudo-intellectual. He’s a actual fighter who isn’t scared to inform the higher-ups the truth,” Pukhov informed the ‘Financial Times’.
Marshal Georgy Zhukov become a mythical Soviet fashionable who led the Red Army in a number of its maximum consequential victories of World War II. On Monday, as a barrage of rockets hit civilian regions in Ukraine, ‘The Guardian’ quoted a former defence respectable who the record stated had labored with Surovikin: “I am now no longer amazed to look what took place this morning in Kyiv. Surovikin is surely ruthless, with little regard for human life.” “I am afraid his (Surovikin’s) palms could be absolutely included in Ukrainian blood,” the nameless respectable informed ‘The Guardian’.
‘The New York Times’ record quoted Michael Kofman, director of Russia research at CNA, a defence studies institute primarily based totally in Virginia, US, as saying: “He (Surovikin) is called a quite ruthless commander who is brief with subordinates and is understood for his temper.” Many roles in an extended career According to profiles of Gen Surovikin posted in a couple of Western media outlets, he become already conserving an vital function withinside the management of the navy offensive in Ukraine, despite the fact that he had now no longer been officially named commander. Before the strugglefare began, he had served in quite a number roles withinside the Russian navy, and were taken into consideration a ability leader of the overall staff, the general head of all wings of the armed forces. He is a former head of Russia’s air force, the ‘Financial Times’ stated.
Surovikin had served in Chechnya withinside the early years of this century, and were chief of the Russian forces that intervened in Syria in 2015 at the facet of President Bashar al-Assad. ‘The Guardian’ pronounced that he had informed navy colleagues in Moscow in 2017 that “whilst appearing fight missions in Syria, now no longer for a second did we neglect about that we had been protecting Russia”. Can he restore Russia’s troubles withinside the strugglefare? The appointment of Gen Surovikin has come at a time whilst Western media has been reporting successes for Ukrainian forces, and severe setbacks for President Vladimir Putin. Russia is stated to be combating shortages of manpower and munitions, and a mobilisation pressure introduced through Putin is, in line with Western sources, very unpopular.
Along together along with his popularity for brutality and corruption, Surovikin is taken into consideration to be a in a position fashionable. “Surovikin is aware of the way to combat with bombers and missiles — that’s what he does,” Gen Kyrylo O Budanov, the top of Ukraine’s navy intelligence service, had stated in June, ‘The New York Times’ pronounced. “Surovikin is the maximum capin a position commander withinside the Russian army,” ‘The Guardian’ quoted Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founding father of the personal defense force Wagner Group, as saying. He is a “mythical figure, he become born to serve his motherland faithfully,” Prigozhin stated, in line with a declaration from Concord, a organisation he’s related with, ‘The Guardian’ record stated. Western media, however, talked about that given the deep-seated institutional and structural problems with the Russian navy, employees modifications including the appointment of Surovikin might not be sufficient to make a dramatic difference.
“That isn’t going to clear up all their troubles,” ‘The New York Times’ quoted Frederick B Hodges, a former pinnacle US Army commander in Europe as saying. “All the troubles are institutional, deeply rooted flaws — corruption, loss of readiness.”
