Commander of Russia’s Aerospace Forces Sergei Surovikin, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov are missing. (Image: Reuters)
Surovikin was allegedly aware that Prigozhin would stage a coup and picked his side. The whereabouts of Gerasimov remain unknown.
Russian top generals Sergei ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin and Valery Gerasimov, its chief of army staff, have dropped out of public view following Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed coup d’etat against the Russian government.
A report by the Moscow Times said that Surovikin was arrested, citing Russian defence ministry officials. It should be noted that Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon”, is deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine.
Also out of the public eye is Russian chief of army staff Valery Gerasimov. Gerasimov is the commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine and also was supposed to be in control of one of Russia’s three “nuclear briefcases,” a report by news agency Reuters said.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, who last weekend declared a mutiny against the Russian Federation, demanded that defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Gerasimov be flown to Rostov-on-Don – a city he and his mercenary group briefly captured – for ‘discussions’.
Putin, however, did not deliver his two most ‘trusted’ men to Prigozhin.
The Moscow Times report said that ‘Armageddon’ Surovikin is under investigation for his connection to the failed coup. The report citing pro-war military blogger Vladimir Romanov said Surovikin was arrested Sunday and remains lodged in Moscow’s Lefortovo detention centre.
The allegation against Surovikin is that he possessed prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s plan to instigate a rebellion against Russia’s military leadership. Russian defence ministry officials also told the Moscow Times that Surovikin picked Prigozhin’s side during the uprising.
The Kremlin was quick to discard the narrative as ‘misinformation’ and said Putin will not give in to Prigozhin’s demands for an imminent reshuffle of the Russian military’s top echelons.
Prigozhin later withdrew his coup attempt following an intervention from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Prigozhin is currently in exile in Minsk and is yet to be seen in public.
“ We could waste [Prigozhin]no problem. If not on the first try, then on the second. I told him: don’t do this,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the BBC.
“Yes, indeed, he’s in Belarus today,” Lukashenko said on Wednesday and his government also set the Wagner mercenaries up at an abandoned military base camp. “There is a fence, everything is available, erect your tents,” Lukashenko told the Wagnerites.
Wagnerites have been given the option to join the Russian Army, go home or head to Belarus.
