General Sergei Surovikin, Commander-in-Chief russian Aerospace Forces and deputy commander of russian forces in Ukraine, has not been seen in public since the June 23-24 Wagner Group mutiny, the UK Defense Intelligence reports.
The suspicion that has potentially fallen on senior serving officers highlights how Prigozhin’s abortive insurrection has worsened existing fault lines within russia’s national security community.
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Reports of Surovikin’s arrest cannot be confirmed, but authorities will likely be suspicious of his long association with Wagner dating back to his service in Syria from 2017.
Meanwhile, Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Yunus-bek Yevkurov was notably absent from a televised appearance by the Ministry of Defense’s leadership on July 3, 2023.
Similarly, Yunus-bek Yevkurov was filmed talking to Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin during the group’s uncontested takeover of Rostov-on-Don.
Although largely known in the West by his brutal reputation, Surovikin is one of the more respected senior officers within the russian military; any official sanction against him is likely to be divisive.
Read more: The UK Defense Intelligence: 139,000 of Ukrainians Evacuated, 6.3 Million Remain Refugees
