Sergey Surovikin addresses the Wagner PMC leadership Photo: Anadolu Agency
Missing Russian commander Sergey Surovikin was an honorary member of the Wagner mercenary group, Russian investigative agency said.
General Surovikin, former commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, appears on a list of 30 Russian military and intelligence officers with Wagner code numbers obtained by the opposition Dossier Center. .
The names of other persons are not disclosed.
“Surovikin became a Wagnerian back in 2017,” the Dossier Center reports. “He was given a personal PMC badge with the number M-3744.”
General Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon,” is the deputy commander of the Russian invasion forces in Ukraine, but he has not been seen since he appeared in a video last Friday advising Russian soldiers not to support the Wagner uprising.
The General “detained”< p>It is reported that he was detained, although his daughter Veronika disputes this.
“Nothing happened to him. He's at work,” she told Baza, a Telegram channel linked to Russia's FSB security service.
In 2017, General Surovikin commanded Russian forces in Syria, where Wagner also had a strong presence. It is also known that he was on good terms with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of a group of mercenaries. associated with Mr. Prigozhin after his failed uprising, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported. Friday.
Mr. Prigozhin canceled his mutiny on Saturday, the day after it began, with his fighters only 120 miles from Moscow.
Now he has flown to Belarus, where he is to remain in exile as part of a deal brokered by President Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of Putin.
Russian authorities did not outlaw the Wagner group after the mutiny, but under an agreement that put end of the crisis, his fighters were given the opportunity to integrate into the regular Russian armed forces, join their leader in Belarus or return home.
General Surovikin “probably knew about the rebellion”
Western intelligence agencies said that General Surovikin probably knew about the rebellion before it began and may have been forced to record his statement calling on Wagner to end the rebellion.
General Surovikin appeared on the video unshaven and was without a general shoulder strap Analysts say this was almost unheard of for Russian generals and that he may have been interrogated.
“Even if he had been dragged out of bed five minutes earlier and told to appear on camera, he would have been in uniform,” said Stephen Hall, a professor of Russian politics at the University of Bath. “It really looked like a very strange video.”
The Kremlin set about marginalizing Wagner after the failed uprising. She shut down Wagner ads and forced her mercenaries to sign new contracts with the Ministry of Defense, although the BBC reported on Thursday that Wagner's recruitment hotlines were still running.
Reports also said Russian government officials had flown to Africa and Syria to explain to local leaders how Wagner's operations there have now come under the control of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
But the Wagner brand remains strong despite the failed coup, and the Russians have been snapping up their range of goods in recent days.< /p>
At Wildberries, the Russian version of Amazon, customers cooed and gloated over stickers, badges and key chains with the Wagner logo, a skull in a sniper scope.
> “What a chic item,” Maria said together with a five-star Wagner keychain review. “I gave this to my husband.”
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