‘General Armageddon’ Sergey Surovikin’s bio disappears from Russian Defense Ministry website

Viktor Zavarzin, a member of the State Duma Defense Committee, has told the Russian news outlet Podyom about General Sergey Surovikin’s presumed new appointment.

“I know the same thing as you, that he’s got a different job,” the official said to the publication, adding that it’s “a decent job,” dealing in some way with the Commonwealth of Independent States.

“This person has been to war; he is now taking a break and will probably be on vacation for a while. Let’s wait and see. Nothing terrible is happening to him,” the speaker concluded.

Surovikin’s biography has recently vanished from the Russian Defense Ministry’s website, as pointed out by Anastasia Kashevarova, former advisor to the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. Kashevarova writes that Surovikin’s name has also been removed from the website’s page on Russian Aerospace Forces and their leadership. A cached version of the site shows that the change took place after September 2.

The news that Surovikin had been removed from his post as Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces was reported by RIA Novosti on August 23, but rumors of the general being in custody after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed insurrection attempt were never officially confirmed.

An informed source nevertheless told The New York Times that Surovikin was released a few days after Prigozhin died in the August 23 plane crash.

On September 4, the Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak published a photo of Surovikin, captioned: “Alive, well, at home with family in Moscow.”