General Armageddon: strikes bear hallmarks of Russia’s new commander

Russia’s biggest missile attack on Ukraine came less than 48 hours after President Putin appointed a notoriously brutal military commander known as General Armageddon to revive the Kremlin’s faltering offensive.

General Sergei Surovikin was named on Saturday as Russia’s first overall commander for the war, giving him total control over Putin’s forces in Ukraine. His appointment came hours after a huge explosion partially destroyed a vital 12-mile bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula. Putin described the blast as an act of terrorism carried out by Ukrainian special forces.

Surovikin, 55, oversaw the destruction of Aleppo in 2016, when Syrian government forces retook the city with the support of Russian airstrikes. Human rights groups accused him of using banned cluster munitions and incendiary weapons. The bombardment of Aleppo became known as one of the most brutal in the war with more than 600 civilians killed, including dozens of children.

 “Surovikin knows how to fight with bombers and missiles — that’s what he does,” Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, said in June, when Surovikin was in charge of Russian forces in northern Ukraine.

His appointment has delighted hardliners in Russia, many of whom had been openly scathing of Putin’s handling of the war. “Surovikin is the most competent commander in the Russian army,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group of pro-Kremlin mercenaries.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin leader of Chechnya, said that the appointment of Surovikin meant that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was now in “reliable hands.”

Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.

He gained infamy in 1991 when a tank division under his command tried to break through a line of people in central Moscow who were protesting against an ultimately unsuccessful KGB coup. Three people were crushed to deaths by his tanks.

Surovikin spent several months in prison before charges were dropped when officials ruled that he had been following orders. “He is the same officer who without hesitation, having received an order, got into a tank and rushed to save his country,” Prigozhin said.

Russia’s salvo of missiles at cities across Ukraine today demonstrated the same ruthlessness that Surovikin displayed in Syria, said General Sir Richard Barrons, former head of the UK forces command.

For Putin, today’s attacks are a bid to break the will of the Ukraine population, he said. “The way we saw Aleppo levelled ... we are getting that in Ukraine”, he said. “[This is the] same brutal, feral quality you saw in Syria.”

One of the key differences, however, is that more than half of the missile launched by Russia today were shot down by Ukraine’s missile defence systems. Of the 75 missiles launched, 41 of them were destroyed by Ukraine’s air defence, its military said. The civilians in Aleppo did not have that protection.

Although it is unclear where the system is deployed, the Ukrainians are using the same system that protects the White House and the Pentagon. With a range of up to 31 miles, the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, NA SAMS, has the ability to counter a range of targets, including cruise missiles.

Russia today used Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles launched from strategic bombers from the Caspian region, Iskander missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea, according to Ukraine Air Force Command.

Kalibr cruise missiles are sophisticated weapons that are reliant on western technology. Although they have been used before in attacks on Ukraine, military experts believe the Russians are running out of them and once they do, they will not be able to procure anymore.

In theory cruise missiles should be accurate to 2-5 metres, according to experts. Barrons said that in the case of today’s attacks, either Putin was deliberately targeting sites such as a children’s playground in the capital Kyiv or they had been directed to the wrong place.

Justin Crump, an analyst at the risk consultancy Sibylline, said Russia had been using bombers throughout the conflict, especially early on, but now they were increasing the breadth and depth of their targets.

President Zelensky said that Russia used Iranian drones in today’s attack, demonstrating the evolution of technology since the carpet-bombing of densely populated civilian areas using indiscriminate weapons such as barrel bombs in Syria. Crump suggested that as Russia runs out of its sophisticated weaponry, it could resort to similar tactics.

He said: “Russia, after a long period of comparatively little focus on cities away from the front lines, has launched today’s strikes using a higher degree of precision weaponry aided by the recent influx of comparatively cheap Iranian kamikaze drones. It is assessed that they have been husbanding these given the need to have stockpiles in the event of a wider conflict, and so it is unclear how long this tempo can be maintained for.”

He warned that “increasing use may be made of older, less accurate weapon stocks as Russia seeks to maintain pressure — especially on the cities nearer the front line, such as Zaporizhzhya, Mikolaiv, Odesa and Kharkiv”.