Sergey Surovikin, deputy commander of the joint grouping of Russian troops in Ukraine, has been suspended from his job, placed under house arrest and ordered to keep quiet until his name is forgotten.
Politico, citing Russian military bloggers and media outlets, reported that there was no official investigation into Surovikin’s actions, but he was placed under house arrest.
“The VChK-OGPU blog, which is considered close to Russia’s security forces, reported that Surovikin has been permitted visitors, including several of his subordinates.
There is no official investigation, but Surovikin spent a long time in limbo answering uncomfortable questions. The general has been advised to stay under the radar so that he is forgotten.”
The Russian blog also reported that the decision on Surovikin’s fate “must be taken by one person, and the longer this takes, the more this person will cool down”, meaning Putin.
A few days earlier, Russian State Duma MP Viktor Sobolev reported that Surovikin had been removed from his duties as commander of the Kremlin’s troops in Ukraine.
Sobolev also hinted that Surovikin could still be useful to the Russian army later, if no serious violations were found against him.
Background:
On 12 July, Russian media outlets reported that Surovikin had been detained by counterintelligence in connection with the mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Earlier, the Russian FSB announced that the case of Prigozhin’s mutiny in Russia was closed.
However, Surovikin, who has been repeatedly linked to Prigozhin by Western media, has not appeared in public since his address to the Wagnerites on the night of 23-24 June, in which he called on them to lay down their arms.
Bloomberg also wrote that the general had been interrogated by military prosecutors for several days about his ties to Prigozhin. The agency’s source claimed that Surovikin was being held “in a certain place”, but not in prison.
