Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday announced the appointment of Sergei Surovikin as the new commander of its “special military operation” in Ukraine, following setbacks on the ground and signs of growing discontent among elites over the course of the conflict.
“Army General Sergei Surovikin has been appointed commander of the combined group of troops in the field of special military operations” in Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry announced on Telegram.
Surovikin, 55, is a veteran of the civil war in Tajikistan in the 1990s, the second Chechnya war in the 2000s and the Russian intervention in Syria launched in 2015.
The now-new commander of Russian soldiers has so far led the “South” group of troops in Ukraine, according to a report from the Russian ministry in July.
The name of Surovikin’s predecessor was never officially revealed, but the Russian press spoke of General Alexander Dvornikov, also a veteran of the Second Chechen War and commander of Russian forces in Syria from 2015 to 2016.
This decision, made public by Moscow, comes after a series of defeats suffered by the Russian army in Ukraine and the day an explosion destroyed the Crimean Bridge, a fundamental infrastructure for the supply of this peninsula annexed by Moscow and Russian troops in Ukraine. , partially destroyed.
In early September, Russian forces were driven from much of northeast Kharkov in a Ukrainian counter-offensive that allowed Kiev to recapture thousands of square kilometers of territory.
Russian forces also lost 500 square kilometers of territory in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine and narrowly escaped the siege of Lyman, a logistics center now in the hands of the Ukrainian military.
As for the explosion that happened on the bridge connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula, it followed a fire at a fuel depot, according to RIA Novosti and Tass news agencies.
Road traffic on the bridge has been shut down, despite being a major access point that Russia built after it occupied and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in violation of international law.
The fire came hours after explosions hit the Ukrainian city of Kharkov this morning.
According to the Union of Insurers of Russia, the damage to the bridge should amount to between 3.3 million and 8.2 million euros.
The bridge symbolizes the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, an infrastructure dear to Vladimir Putin.
These setbacks have already drawn criticism from the Russian elite, with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov being highly critical of the military command, while a senior parliamentary official, Andrei Kartapolov, has publicly urged the military to “stop lying”.
Source: DN
