The new commander of the Russian troops in Ukraine is the man who saved the Assad government

Command of all Russian armed forces in Ukraine is taken by General Sergei Surovikin. During his 35-year career in the Russian army, he was awarded the title of “Hero of the Russian Federation” and commanded the Russian armed forces in Syria.

Sergey Surovikin was born on October 11, 1966 in Novosibirsk. He graduated from the Omsk Higher Combined Arms Command School, the M. V. Frunze Military Academy and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces.

He gained fame in August 1991, during the so-called GKChP putsch. Then, with the rank of captain, he commanded a motorized rifle battalion of the division, which was introduced to Moscow. On the night of August 20-21, a column of armored vehicles commanded by Surovikin was stopped in a tunnel on the Garden Ring by demonstrators who opposed the State Emergency Committee in support of the Russian authorities. When the column broke through the barricades, three demonstrators were killed. After the defeat of the GKChP, Surovikin was arrested, but as a result of the investigation, the charges against him were dropped, since it was proved that he was following the orders of the leadership.

Sergei Surovikin took part in the armed conflict in Tajikistan, the second Chechen war and the military operation in Syria. Under Surovikin’s command, the Assad government achieved a major turning point in its fight against its civil war rivals, regaining more than 50% control over Syria by the end of 2017 after a series of successful military campaigns. According to military experts, it was Surovikin who managed to turn the tide of the war in Syria, and now it is he who controls the fate of Russian troops in Ukraine.

In 2017, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces and was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for the courage and heroism shown in the performance of military duty in Syria.

In recent weeks, Russian troops in Ukraine have suffered a series of defeats and abandoned large areas. It is noted that General Vladimir Putin’s posting to the battlefield in Ukraine followed the suspension, as reported earlier this week, of two commanders from a total of five military commands in Russia.

In April, the BBC reported, citing an unnamed source, that Army General Oleksandr Dvornikov had been appointed as the new commander of the so-called special operation in Ukraine. This has not been officially confirmed, Russian bloggers commenting on the appointment of Surovikin note that the commander of the entire group in Ukraine has been appointed for the first time since the start of the war.

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