Putin Eyes Replacement for Top Military Chief 'Fired' After Wagner Mutiny

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly appointed Colonel-General Viktor Afzalov as acting head of the air force, replacing General Sergei Surovikin who hasn't been sighted publicly since the Wagner Group's aborted mutiny in June.

"Ex-chief of the Russian Air and Space Forces Sergei Surovikin has now been relieved of his post, while Colonel-General Viktor Afzalov, head of the Main Staff of the Air Force, is temporarily acting as commander-in-chief of the Air Force," Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed source.

The news was also reported by Izvestia, a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia, which cited three unnamed sources.

Newsweek could not independently verify the reports and the Kremlin has yet to comment on any developments. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

Surovikin, who earned his nickname "General Armageddon" in Russian media because of his aggressive tactics in Chechnya and Syria, was last seen in a video appeal calling for an end to the June 24 mutiny led by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, with whom he was reported to have good relations. Reports in July based on a U.S. intelligence briefing also suggested that the general had known in advance about Prigozhin's plans to march on Moscow.

Questions have been raised about his whereabouts, with many suggesting that he'd been fired or arrested, particularly after he was notably missing from a July 10 meeting of military officials. A senior Russian politician said last month that Surovikin was "resting."

But on August 13, the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, which has close ties to Russian security forces, cited several sources as saying that Surovikin is now in an apartment "under a kind of house arrest," and that while there is no official investigation into the general, he spent a long time in limbo, answering "uncomfortable questions."

Surovikin and his relatives have been advised to stay under the radar so that he is "forgotten."

Surovikin's fate "must be decided by one person [Russian President Vladimir Putin], and the longer this takes, the more this person will cool down," a source told the channel.

Izvestia's sources said Surovikin is on a "short vacation" and that he was relieved of his post because he was transferring to "another job."

Afzalov, 55, graduated in 2010 from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in Moscow, and was appointed commander of the Air Force and Air Defense Army of the Eastern Military District in July 2017.

In August 2018, he became chief of the main headquarters of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Four years later, he was promoted to colonel-general.

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