A general with a Syrian view of the Aerospace Forces. Sergey Surovikin received a new appointment

The Ministry of Defense has selected the main contenders for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces (VKS). The candidacies of two military leaders are being considered: Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Igor Makushev and Commander of the Space Forces, Colonel General Alexander Golovko. It is noteworthy that Colonel General Sergei Surovikin was initially nominated for this post. His appointment could have become a sensation, since Surovikin is a combined arms commander.

As the Ministry of Defense told Izvestia, the final choice between Alexander Golovko and Igor Makushev will be made in the very near future, since the current commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces, Colonel General Viktor Bondarev, will leave to work in the Federation Council by the end of September. Both candidates are honored military leaders and have extensive leadership experience.

Lieutenant General Igor Makushev was born on August 6, 1964 in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. In 1985 he graduated from the Chernigov Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots, and in 2006 - Military Academy General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

He has a reputation as an accomplished fighter pilot and combat commander. Makushev went through all the steps of the career ladder - from pilot to deputy commander of the air army. He is qualified as a sniper pilot and has over 3 thousand flight hours. As deputy commander of the 16th Air Army, he took part in the operation to force Georgia to peace in August 2008. Igor Makushev became known to the general public when in the summer of 2014 he presented at briefings the position of the Russian military department in connection with the death of the Malaysian Boeing 777.

In his current position, General Makushev solves the problems of scientific substantiation of promising directions for the construction, development, training, use and support of the Armed Forces.

Unlike Makushev, the second candidate did not come from the flight personnel, but from the space forces. Colonel General Alexander Golovko was born on January 29, 1964 in Dnepropetrovsk. Graduated from the Kharkov Higher Military Command and Engineering School of Missile Forces (1986), the Military Academy named after. F.E. Dzerzhinsky (1996), Military Academy of the General Staff (2003).

From 1986 to 2001, he served in various command and engineering positions in military units Main Test Center for Testing and Control of Spacecraft named after. G.S. Titova (GITSIU KS). In 2007, he headed the GITSIU KS, and in 2011 he became the head of the Plesetsk cosmodrome. In December 2012, Golovko was appointed commander of the Aerospace Defense Forces.

According to Izvestia, until recently the main contender was considered the commander of the Eastern Military District (EMD), Colonel General Sergei Surovikin. However, according to some reports, he himself refused this position. After all, even the very fact of considering the candidacy of a “land” general became a kind of sensation in military circles.

Sergey Surovikin graduated from the Omsk Higher Combined Arms College in 1987 command school, and later - the Academy. M.V. Frunze and the Military Academy of the General Staff. He went through all stages of his officer's career. In the 1990s he served in Tajikistan in the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, and in the 2000s he commanded the 42nd Guards Division in Chechnya. In 2012, he led the working group of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the creation of military police. In October 2013, Surovikin was appointed commander of the Troops of the Eastern Military District.

The reason for nominating Surovikin for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces was that he commanded a group of troops in Syria, where he was able to effectively integrate unified system ground forces, aviation, air defense systems and space forces.

That the commander-in-chief Air Force Colonel General Viktor Bondarev will be delegated to the Federation Council from Kirov region, became known in July of this year. Bondarev has held the position of Air Force Commander-in-Chief since May 6, 2012. The Colonel General was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces on August 1, 2015. It was under him that the Air Force turned into the Aerospace Forces due to the integration of the Aerospace Defense Forces into them.

"not being from the Air Force or Space Force is not a barrier,"

A positive factor too.

I judge from my own experience: the “comrades” who came to power in my organization from parallel structures (RAO Russian Railways) are putting incredible efforts and wild imagination into destabilizing the work of my institution.

"According to colleagues' reviews, Sergei Surovikin is a very tough and principled commander, not shy to defend their point of view. "

I'm the boss, are you all fools?

I believe that this is mostly the creative presentation of journalists. And this production itself looks somewhat chaotic. Defending your point of view to your subordinates does not require any adherence to principles.

At one time, working in a large Russian holding, discussing at a planning meeting significant issues structural changes, in some situations I had to hear something like this direct speech from the director: “somehow I didn’t understand who the director is here.” The problem of manageability of large organizations exists, just as the organization is NOT a sham feedback aimed at obtaining a positive result. It is possible to take completely sensible ideas to the point of absurdity, and it is not always appropriate to project patterns of personal experience without reference to the conditions of a specific situation.

and was promoted to rank by personal order of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Understanding the actions Captain Surovikin, Yeltsin directly said “... and release Major Surovikin immediately.” Thereby making it clear which promotes him in rank for exemplary performance of military duty"

Interesting facts
Police Colonel Vladimir Slepak, a famous author and performer of his own songs, dedicated the song “Divisional Commander” to his friend and brother in arms Sergei Vladimirovich Surovikin.
To all ranks, except for the lieutenant colonel, Sergey Vladimirovich Surovikin introduced himself ahead of schedule. He became the division's chief of staff and colonel at the age of 32.

If you mean that he was promoted to major, then I believe that everything is correct here. But to those who clearly undeservedly received the title of Hero Soviet Union In this situation, I have a completely different attitude.

This is apparently just the work of cartoonists from Wikipedia Shirley Myrley, and for whose benefit they are doing this, you can also think about it if you wish

Lieutenant General Sergei Vladimirovich Surovikin was born in 1966 in the city of Novosibirsk into a family of employees. After studying on average educational institution entered and graduated with a gold medal from the Omsk Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1987, with honors from the M.V. Frunze Military Academy in 1995 and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Russian Federation in 2002
Began his officer career in the army special purpose, as part of which he performed international duty on the territory of the Republic of Afghanistan. He passed all the main military positions from the commander of a motorized rifle platoon to the commander of the combined arms army of the Moscow Military District. During his service he changed several districts and garrisons - the Volga region, the Urals, North Caucasus, Republic of Tajikistan.
Sergei Surovikin led troops during the Chechen military campaigns. Since 2009 - Head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In January 2010, he was appointed chief of staff - first deputy commander of the Volga-Ural Military District, later the Central Military District.

At that moment, the commander of the 149th regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Vladimirovich Surovikin, makes an immediate decision to conduct a rescue operation. Since the depth and size of the mudflow did not allow conventional vehicles to reach the disaster site, they began to fight their way to the disaster site in tanks. The scale of the disaster was such that even tanks could hardly cope with the onslaught of the elements. Heading the column, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Surovikin, together with the crew of the first vehicle, using equipment for underwater driving of tanks, crossed the mud barrier along the bottom. Personal example and the decisive actions of the commander helped the personnel to fulfill their duty without loss.
During the operation, servicemen of Sergei Surovikin’s regiment took 34 children and 55 village residents to safety. Only later, at the end of the operation, doctors stated that the soldiers and officers suffered severe hypothermia and some even required hospitalization.

On March 11, 2005, the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division received an order to conduct a special operation to destroy a group of militants in the area to the south settlement Khatuni, together with an armored group from the 70th motorized rifle regiment, left to lead the operation operational headquarters led by General Surovikin. While following the road to the village of Khatuni, a landmine exploded under the armored personnel carriers in front covering the headquarters vehicle of the division commander. Despite the concussion he received, Sergei Surovikin and his officers began to assist the crew of the burning car, which saved them from imminent death. Having transferred the wounded to the ambulance armored personnel carrier, the column continued to move to the area of ​​​​the upcoming events and successfully carried out an operation to destroy the bandits.

For successfully carried out operations, personal courage and bravery, General Surovikin was repeatedly awarded state awards.

Surovikin had an order to move to a certain point and provide security government facilities. Because politics is politics, but during large-scale protests a huge number of people want to rob take to the streets. In such cases it is impossible to do without armed guards. The military must arrive at the specified location. Simply put - physically get there. You cannot stand in their way - they are obliged to carry out the order under any circumstances, incl. and overcome any obstacle to completing the combat mission. This is not a drill. This is real military action.

As for the reaction of the country's first president to the actions of Captain Surovikin in August 1991, it is enough to recall one detail. Yeltsin personally gave the order for the release of Major Surovikin. Yes, I didn’t make a mistake, Boris Nikolaevich said exactly that: “...and release Major Surovikin immediately.” Thus, making it clear that he was promoting him in rank for exemplary performance of military duty.
http://42msd.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&...

Due to the fact that the case caused a great public outcry, Vek received a video recording of Leonid Volkov’s interview. The entire recording lasts more than an hour and, of course, there is no point in posting it in its entirety. We decided to pay attention to separate fragments where the police officer writes down Volkov’s answers, which talk about the same thing (clarifying questions on the same topics were asked throughout Volkov’s interview). These fragments raised questions in us, which we will voice in this material.
In addition, we received copies of some documents, which we also publish.

Law enforcement agencies, naturally, already at the preliminary stage (the survey of Leonid Volkov) realized that the deputy’s statements about threats against him were “dummy”, a fake, in the language of Internet users. Or - a lie, if you call a spade a spade. However, law enforcement officers conscientiously “followed the signal” and asked Yekaterinburg City Duma deputy Leonid Volkov to provide them with details of calls for the period when he allegedly received calls from “well-wishers” warning of threats. Volkov promised. And he didn’t just promise, but wrote about it in the protocol with his own hand.

On April 21, 2004, at about 6 p.m., Deputy Commander of the Regional Military District, Lieutenant General Stolyarov A.N. Based on the results of the inspection, he arrived at the headquarters of unit 61423 in the office of the commander of the specified unit, Major General S.V. Surovikin, where, in order to report the detected deficiencies and determine the time frame for their elimination, he called Surovikin and his deputy for armaments, Colonel A.A. Shtakal.

The recruits of the engineering battalion who participated in the exercises, called up in April-May, managed to install a pontoon bridge in 4.5 hours during training, and in 18 minutes during the exercises themselves. That is, even in a short time you can manage to train specialists who will professionally perform their duties.

As the press service of the Central Military District reported, the chief of staff of the Central Military District, Lieutenant General Sergei Surovikin, took an active part in the preparation and conduct of the Vostok-2010 exercises.

Possessing brilliant theoretical training, he went through almost all the “hot spots” in which the army has taken part in the last twenty years: from Tajikistan to Chechnya, and has military awards. It is no coincidence that he was once appointed to head the Main Operational Directorate (GOU) of the General Staff of the country's Defense Ministry. By the way, the general is sometimes reproached for his tough leadership style and excessive demands on his subordinates. Another thing is that it is simply impossible to do without this in the army, since the cost of the decisions made is too high - the lives of tens and hundreds of people. Both the commander of the Central Military District Vladimir Chirkin and Lieutenant General Sergei Surovikin at one time headed the 42nd division in Chechnya. So the command of the Central Military District is in experienced and professional hands.

The NEWest modification of the mobile computer center allows for twice the gain in accuracy, mobility, and efficiency in command and control of troops compared to the previously used TsBU-3. The chief of staff of the 20th Army of the Guard, Major General, told us about this Sergey Surovikin.

– Previously, we worked on maps, typing commands manually. And now automated workstations allow you to see everything on the computer screen and transmit information in a matter of seconds,” the general added.

Fixed-volume machines can accommodate four or five operators, but variable-volume equipment, in other words, sliding kungs, can accommodate up to 12 people. And this despite the fact that it can be deployed and prepared for work in just two hours by the crew working on it.

Who needed to discredit the military general? Apparently, for those who do not benefit from establishing order in the Armed Forces, because in conditions of disorder it is much easier to fish in troubled waters. And any order is like a bone in their throat. It’s funny, but such a reaction from the relevant people indicates that these people firmly know that General Surovikin is exactly the person who is able to restore order.

On November 29, Krasnaya Zvezda officially published a message that Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, who until recently led the group Russian troops in Syria, appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces (VKS). The atypical appointment of a combined arms general is attracting attention. Iz.ru recalled the career history of several senior officers national army, who just as dramatically changed their specialization.

Sergei Surovikin appointed head of the Russian Aerospace Forces
Biography under a microscope

Sergei Surovikin graduated from the Omsk Combined Arms Command School and commanded motorized rifle units. In particular, the battalion of the Taman Division, which Captain Surovikin brought to Moscow in August 1991, turned out to be the hero of the notorious incident in the Tchaikovsky Tunnel on the Garden Ring. Then, while trying to block the exit of a column of armored vehicles from the tunnel, three defenders of the White House were killed.

They tried to bring Surovikin to justice for that story, but he was completely acquitted, and it is known that Russian President Boris Yeltsin personally stood up for the captain.
In the 1990s, Surovikin served in Tajikistan, as part of the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, where he rose to the rank of chief of staff. In the 2000s, he commanded divisions in Russia (including the 42nd motorized rifle division in Chechnya), and then the 20th Army. In 2008–2010, he held an important post: he headed the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff. If the General Staff, as Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov noted, is the brain of the army, then the GOU is the key structure of this brain, responsible for planning combat operations and operational control of troops.

Then Surovikin served in the leadership of the Central and Eastern Military Districts. Since 2013, he has headed the Eastern District, and since May 2017, he has simultaneously led the Group of Russian Forces in Syria.

Of course, any general, no matter who he was when he graduated from college, receives a serious course of general command training at the General Staff Academy, becoming familiar with the characteristics of all branches of the armed forces and branches of the Armed Forces. This allows senior officers who rise to key positions in the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense to better understand the specifics of their “neighbors” and link them into a single plan.

But it’s one thing to get to know each other at the academy and through self-training, and quite another to grow out of the Air Force or Air Defense Forces on your own, having gotten to know them from top to bottom.
Let's see, is it normal for a combined arms general to lead the country's air force, air defense and missile defense? Have there been such precedents in our history and how successful were they?

Who gets what?

IN Soviet era The land transport corporation held the highest positions in military command quite firmly. It was mainly motorized riflemen, tankers, and, less often, artillerymen who reached the top. There were practically no people in senior positions, say, signalmen or chemists (with the exception of command of specialized branches of the military).

The only notable exception was Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, who headed the Soviet General Staff from 1977 to 1984. He is a military engineer by training and spent the first 10 years of his service in engineering troops, only after that moving to operational headquarters positions.

District commanders are usually appointed from among the ground forces. The only exception is Admiral Konstantin Sidenko, who led the Eastern Military District in 2010–2013. Before that, submariner Sidenko commanded the Pacific Fleet. Such an experiment was made possible thanks to a new approach to the military district (the joint strategic command), which gathered under its headquarters the control of all forces and assets in the reporting territory, including the Air Force and Navy
Among the top commanders of the army, it was rare, but still, to come across people who did not have a completely “core” initial education. Army General Viktor Samsonov, chief of the Russian General Staff in 1996–1997, graduated as an officer Marine Corps and only after graduating from the Frunze Academy he transferred to motorized rifle formations. Colonel General Vladimir Komarov, head of the combat training department Ground Forces in 1961–1969, from 1930 he served in the border troops of the OGPU (NKVD) and only at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he transferred to the army, receiving command of an ordinary rifle regiment.

Frequent “guests” in the Ground Forces were paratroopers, but the ground forces also managed to lead the “winged infantry.” The rebel Colonel General Vladislav Achalov, who headed the Airborne Forces in 1989–1990 and was listed as the Minister of Defense in the alternative government of the Supreme Council (September-October 1993), is a tank driver, and he served on tanks for the first seven years. He was transferred to the Airborne Forces only after the Academy of Armored Forces, and later he was again torn away from the landing force, returning to the leadership of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, then to the Leningrad Military District, and only from there was appointed to the post of commander.

Reverse transitions happened more often. The best known is paratrooper Vladimir Shamanov, who led combined arms groups in the North Caucasus from the mid-1990s, and after the period of civil political career returned to service - first to the combat training department of the Ministry of Defense, and then to the post of commander of the Airborne Forces (2009–2016).

Lieutenant General Valery Asapov, who died in September 2017 in Syria, is also an Airborne Forces officer, but from the post of chief of staff of the 98th Airborne Division he took a different line, rising to the rank of commander of the 5th Combined Arms Army.

Among the paratroopers currently occupying combined arms command positions, we can mention the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Sergei Istrakov (his last position in the Airborne Forces was the commander of an air assault brigade). Several more Airborne Forces officers serve in high command positions in the Ground Forces, including the chiefs of staff of the Central and Southern Military Districts (Evgeny Ustinov and Mikhail Teplinsky), as well as the commander of the 8th Army, Sergei Kuzovlev.

General Boris Gromov, a motorized rifle officer by training who commanded the 40th Army in Afghanistan, served as First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1990–1991. At the end of 1991, he returned to the structures of the USSR Ministry of Defense, then to Russia. Similar was the appointment of Lieutenant General Ivan Yakovlev (self-propelled fighter, then commander in tank forces) to the post of commander in chief internal troops Ministry of Internal Affairs (1968–1986). Yakovlev, in turn, was replaced by another motorized rifleman - General Yuri Shatalin, chief of staff of the Moscow Military District.

Make from scratch

There were two young branches of the military, which, due to the novelty and unfamiliarity of the topic, were especially lucky with “non-core commanders.” This is the Rocket Forces strategic purpose(Strategic Missile Forces) and those that interest us, among others, are the Air Defense Forces.

The Strategic Missile Forces were initially created by artillery generals: war hero Kirill Moskalenko and Mitrofan Nedelin, who tragically died at Baikonur in the explosion of an R-16 intercontinental missile. However, then came a long period of domination by people who had nothing to do with rocket technology, but managed to master it.

From 1962 to 1992, the Strategic Missile Forces were commanded successively: infantrymen Sergei Biryuzov and Nikolai Krylov, tanker Vladimir Tolubko and infantryman (initially a machine gunner and machine gun company commander) Yuri Maksimov.

And if Tolubko in 1960–1968 was part of the leadership of the Strategic Missile Forces and, in fact, directly created them from scratch (although he was then sent to command troops in the Far East for four years), then Biryuzov, Krylov and Maximov to strategic missile technology had nothing to do with them before their appointment.
Maksimov, by the way, before moving to the Strategic Missile Forces, managed to serve as a military adviser in Yemen and Algeria, and also commanded the Turkestan Military District at the crucial moment of the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. Only in 1992, the Strategic Missile Forces received their first commander, raised within the missile corporation, the future Marshal and Minister of Defense Igor Sergeev.

The air defense troops were also pretty lucky with outside commanders. Firstly, they were managed by the above-mentioned Biryuzov. In 1966–1978, the Air Defense Forces were led by Pavel Batitsky, a cavalryman who ended the war as commander of a rifle corps and, in 1948, was transferred to lead air defense groups.

Batitsky is better known as the man who personally shot Lavrenty Beria in 1953, but his contribution to the formation and strengthening Soviet air defense- the main tool for deterring US strategic aviation - cannot be overestimated.
After eight years - when one of the best was at the head of the air defense Soviet aces during the war, Marshal Alexander Koldunov, - a scandal erupted with the landing of Matthias Rust's light aircraft on Red Square. Koldunov was replaced as commander-in-chief of air defense by Ivan Tretyak, another combined arms commander who led the Far Eastern Military District.

Until that moment, Tretyak had only the most indirect relation to air defense: it was he, being the commander-in-chief of the troops on Far East, on September 1, 1983, he gave the order to shoot down a plane that had invaded Soviet airspace and later turned out to be a Korean Air Boeing 747 passenger airliner. By the way, Tretyak, with his analytical mind and professional thoroughness, left a favorable impression and good memory of himself in the air defense.

So the appointment of Surovikin, if you look at the established traditions of the troops (remember that the country’s air defense forces and means are now part of the Aerospace Forces), does not look at all strange. On the contrary, there is a peculiar preservation of traditions.

On November 22, 2017, by decree of the Russian President, 51-year-old Colonel General Sergei Surovikin was appointed as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces (VKS). Previously, he headed a group of Russian troops in Syria, although not for long: according to some sources, since March of this year, according to others - since June. Before that, he served as commander of the Eastern Military District for several years. The career of this military man developed rapidly and noisily.

The upcoming appointment of Surovikin as Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces became known back in September, when Colonel General Viktor Bondarev’s resignation from this post was announced. His departure looks strange: age limit stay on military service for a colonel-general it is 65 years old, and Bondarev will only turn 58 on December 7, so he could well have served for another seven years. And he served as commander-in-chief of the new branch of the Armed Forces created in 2015 for only two years.

Even more questions are raised by the appointment at the head of the purely “air” branch of the Armed Forces of a combined arms general who has never had any connection to military aviation, to space forces or air defense-missile defense troops, also part of the Aerospace Forces. In military aviation, general-arms soldiers, tank crews, and representatives of the Ground Forces in general are traditionally called “boots,” it just so happens. How it happened and what military aviation Only an aviation general should command, but not a “general in boots,” because without knowing the specifics of aviation, it is simply impossible to understand a huge number of things. And you can learn this specificity only by being a pilot (no matter a fighter, attack aircraft or bomber) and having gone through all the required levels of service: flight commander, squadron commander, aviation regiment commander, aviation division commander... Even military pilots have their own specific terminology, tankers and general military officers simply don’t know how to do it.

Until the end of the 1930s, Soviet military aviation was headed by “non-core” specialists, but this was the dawn of its creation: that is, there were already pilots, but they had not yet grown into strategic-level commanders. But since 1939, only pilots have commanded military aviation. True, there was a case when in 1987, after Matthias Rust’s plane landed near the Kremlin, Army General Ivan Tretyak, who had never previously had anything to do with aviation, and a graduate, was appointed commander-in-chief of the air defense forces (which included air defense aviation - over 1200 fighters). machine gun school and an infantryman to the core. I heard a story from many people about how he came to inspect an airfield in the Rostov region and, having climbed to the command and control tower, inspected the runway from above, the centralized refueling station, taxiing stations and said something like: “Oh, what a wonderful tankodrome this would be!” or “That’s how many tanks can be placed here!”

The first thing Army General Tretyak did was change the boots entrusted to him from the aircraft, and when inspecting the air regiments he did not check the condition of the aircraft, but drove around the perimeter of the airfield and looked to see whether the fence posts were straight, what the distance was between the rows of barbed wire, and whether the well hatches were painted correctly. This was the purpose of his inspection. And between flights, the pilots of the air defense regiments planted trees, painted and rebuilt curbs, cleared forest plantations near the airfield; the commander in chief was not at all interested in organizing flights.

Government publications hastened to report that General Surovikin led the Russian group in Syria, having gained invaluable experience in the combined use of forces there. He also has behind him the Military Academy of the General Staff, which he graduated with honors. But he was in Syria for three months. They also write about his rich combat experience, but in what exactly: in organizing flight training for pilots various types aviation or in support maintenance aviation technology? He can probably designate a combat mission by showing on the map exactly where aviation needs to strike. But can a combined arms general plan the forces and means to accomplish the assigned task? Of course not - for this it is necessary to know at a professional level at least the characteristics of aircraft and the weapons used.

Does the land general have any idea about weather conditions and bad weather? From the cadet bench, it is drummed into the military pilot that only he decides whether he is ready to fly or not - this is generally one of the basic principles of flight training. Before any flight, the pilot is obliged to inspect the equipment entrusted to him and make a decision whether to fly or not (of course, this does not apply to the execution of the order), but a combined arms general does not understand such subtleties. The argument regarding General Surovikin’s successful completion of the General Staff Academy is completely weak: all commanders-in-chief and commanders of the Air Force were trained at this academy. And they also studied there strategic issues and organization of interaction between all types and branches of troops. However, for some reason, aviation generals are not appointed commanders-in-chief of the Ground Forces, they are not placed at the head of military districts or commanders of combined arms and tank formations.

In addition, it was during Surovikin’s command that the Russian group (as well as mercenaries from PMCs) in Syria suffered the most significant losses, including a general and several colonels. It is also believed that during the fighting in Deir ez-Zor, Surovikin failed the task of crossing the Euphrates River, the purpose of which was to block the advance of the Kurds to the oil fields. Therefore, they say, the Kurds got the largest oil fields - 75 percent of all Syrian oil. Nevertheless, it was General Surovikin who turned out to be the only one of all the commanders of the Russian group who was constantly shown by central television channels. Assuring that it was during his command that Syrian government forces achieved maximum success on the battlefields.

First blood

The official biography of the new commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces is interesting because it contains too many gaps and mysteries. For example, it says that in 1987 he graduated from the Omsk Higher Combined Arms Command School with a gold medal, but where he served until 1991, not a word about this. Other sources report that he fought in Afghanistan, but about the chronological scope of this service and in what part - there is silence about this. Although in 1989 he was already serving in the Moscow region, in the “court” 2nd Guards Taman Motorized Rifle Division, so if he was in Afghanistan, he was not more than a year. Having received during this time the Order of the Red Star and the medal “For Courage”: quite a lot for a freshly promoted platoon lieutenant.

True, there is neither the Red Star nor the medal “For Courage” on his ceremonial uniform, he also does not wear the bars of these awards, which is also strange. The general is generally confused with bars and orders. According to a certificate from the RIA Novosti agency, published in 2011, Sergei Surovikin was awarded three Orders of Courage, the Order of Military Merit, medals of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, I and II degrees with the image of swords, the Order of the Red Star, medals "For courage", "For military merit", etc. However, in a modern official photograph from the website of the Ministry of Defense, for some reason he has the bars of only one of the three Orders of Courage, the Order of Military Merit and for some reason only one of his combat medals - " For military merits." In other photographs, he either has two bars of the Order of Courage, or all three, and all this refers to the same period of time. Orders, of course, tend to accumulate, but for them to decrease... It’s strange not to wear at least combat straps Soviet awards. And in general, the procedure for wearing awards and award bars is strictly regulated: nothing superfluous, but without diminishing it, wear everything you received.

Just four years after graduating from college, in August 1991, Sergei Surovikin was already a captain and battalion commander. More precisely, an acting battalion commander, but in four years growing from a lieutenant to an entire battalion commander in the “court” Taman division is not just fast, but excessively accelerated. In the army they usually say about such swift ones “they lead him,” meaning “furry paw.” But the “paw” turned out to be very useful when, during the State Emergency Committee, the battalion he commanded had the dubious honor of shedding the blood of three civilians: Vladimir Usov, Dmitry Komar and Ilya Krichevsky. According to one of the active participants in the events, Sergei Bratchikov, it was the battalion commander who took out a pistol and shot the first person he came across in the forehead. True, no one was able to prove anything later: neither the bullet was found, nor the weapon from which they were shot, and the battalion commander’s service pistol turned out to be clean. Maybe everything was completely different, but then three army divisions, a division of internal troops, and KGB units were brought into Moscow, and only Surovikin’s battalion shed the blood of civilians. Captain Surovikin spent several months in Matrosskaya Tishina, but in December 1991 he was released and even promoted to the rank of major: they claim that it was on Yeltsin’s personal orders. And in 1992, the 25-year-old major was sent to study at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze: a simply unprecedented breakthrough.

Surovikin pistols

In 1995, a student at the Frunze Military Academy, Major Surovikin, again found himself in history, this time purely criminal. The Military Court of the Moscow Garrison found him guilty under three articles of the then-current Criminal Code of the RSFSR: Part 1 of Article 17 (“Committing a crime by a group of persons by prior conspiracy or by an organized group”), Article 218 (“Illegal carrying, storage, acquisition, manufacture or sale of weapons , ammunition or explosives") and part 1 of Article 218 ("Theft firearms, ammunition or explosives"). The future general was accused of complicity in the acquisition and sale, as well as carrying firearms and ammunition without the appropriate permit.

These articles of the then Criminal Code provided for substantial sentences of imprisonment: 218 - from three to eight years, 218-1 - up to seven years, and if there was a preliminary conspiracy by a group of persons, or the act was committed by “the person in possession of firearms, ammunition or explosives were issued for official use or entrusted under protective custody,” then up to ten years in prison. But the sentence turned out to be lenient and completely humane: one year of suspended imprisonment. True, except for the personnel bodies of the Ministry of Defense, no one would have known about this story if not for the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky. On December 2, 2011, he sent an official letter to Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, in which he officially informed him about this incident. What was especially important in connection with the fact that Surovikin (by that time already a lieutenant general) headed working group on the creation of military police bodies "with the prospect of appointment to the post of head of the Main Directorate of Military Police of the Ministry of Defense."

The Chief Military Prosecutor informed the Minister of Defense that “not only for moral and ethical reasons, but also in accordance with Article 20 of the draft federal law"On the Military Police of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" rightly provides for a ban on serving in the military police of citizens who have or have had a criminal record." This demarche of the Chief Military Prosecutor did not go unanswered. The then newly created Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, represented by its Military - the investigative department, for some reason in the Southern Military District, to which Surovikin had no connection at that time.

One of the leading officials of this unit of the Investigative Committee admitted that “during training at the Frunze Military Academy, there were cases when some teachers illegally sold weapons, for which they were criminally punished.” And so, “fulfilling the request of one of these teachers, Major Surovikin agreed to give a pistol to a colleague from another course, which was supposed to be used to participate in the competition. The major, not knowing his true intentions, fulfilled the order.” During the interrogation, Major Surovikin spoke of his confidence that he was not committing anything illegal, and therefore, “when the investigation realized that the officer had been framed, the charges were dropped and the criminal record was expunged.”

All regulatory legal acts regulating the handling of personal service weapons clearly interpret their removal outside the military unit outside the scope of performance of official duties as a crime. In peacetime and in a peaceful place, the service weapon must be kept in a service safe or weapons room, from where it is issued when a serviceman is assigned to a squad or during test shooting, and then handed over again. The officer's personal (service) weapon (type of weapon and its number) is recorded on his identification card.

But this is a personal service weapon, and a student at a military academy does not and cannot have any personal service weapons. Unless he is assigned to a patrol or squad at the academy: then he will receive a pistol and two clips, signing in the book for issuing weapons and ammunition, and after the squad he will hand it over, having signed in the same way in the appropriate column. The loss of a weapon, as well as its theft or complicity in it, even out of “ignorance,” is one of the most “bad” crimes for a career officer, a black mark. And definitely an end to his military career.

Many years later, Surovikin himself will say that “this topic” was supposedly closed for him back in 1995: “The investigation looked into the matter, established my innocence, they apologized to me and expunged my criminal record,” and then “the court’s decision to convict was overturned, due to the absence of corpus delicti in my actions, there is no longer any subject for speculation.” But, as follows from the letter of the chief military prosecutor, everything was not quite like that: the investigation, of course, sorted it out, but, having filed charges, sent the case to court. Which handed down, albeit a suspended, but guilty verdict under three articles of the current Criminal Code.

Surovikin began to seek the reversal of the sentence only many years later, when he was already a general and in connection with his upcoming high appointment. That is, until this became an obstacle to another career takeoff, he completely agreed with the verdict and was not going to protest anything? But it seems that not the entire sentence was overturned, but only under two of the three articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR: for some reason under the 17th (“Complicity”) and part 1 of Article 281 (“Theft of firearms, ammunition or explosives"). There is not a word about the reversal of the sentence in the part of Article “simple” 218 (“Illegal carrying, storage, acquisition, manufacture or sale of weapons, ammunition or explosives”).

Iron hand

The major was sent - formally to the war, but not to Chechnya, where the fighting was in full swing, but to the 201st motorized rifle division stationed in Tajikistan. At 32 years old, he is already a colonel and a division chief of staff. Tajikistan was then also considered " hot spot", but by that time formally, since the 201st Division actually no longer conducted combat operations there: they ended in the summer of 1993. An officer I know, who served in 1995 in that same 201st Motorized Rifle Division, says that "there then was a resort." Let's say, not quite a resort, but certainly not a full-fledged theater of combat operations. One way or another, but in Tajikistan, Surovikin moved quickly up the career ladder, quickly running through the steps of battalion commander, chief of staff of the regiment, regiment commander, then becoming chief of staff divisions: from battalion commander to division chief of staff - in just five years.

In 2002, Surovikin graduated from the General Staff Academy, also with honors. Then a new appointment - to the Volga-Ural Military District, commander of the 34th Motorized Rifle Division. He was considered an exemplary divisional commander, having earned a reputation as a stern commander and an “iron hand”, making the formation advanced. Only the methods by which this was achieved can hardly be considered innovative: it was with the appointment of Surovikin to this position that the division began to regularly appear in scandals and criminal reports related to massacres and even murders.

For example, in March 2004, the military court of the Yekaterinburg garrison sentenced two conscript soldiers of this division to eight years in prison for the murder of a fellow soldier, Yaroslav Lazarev. As it turned out, the soldier was killed with the knowledge of the officers, in fact, on their instructions. In the summer of 2003, this soldier, having arrived home on leave, did not return to his unit. But after a while, Lazarev was “figured out,” tracked down and caught. Two special command officers threw the fugitive into the trunk of a car and brought him to the 32nd military town, where the 34th division and its headquarters were stationed. On the evening of December 5, 2003, Captain Denis Shakovets, commander of the company in which Private Lazarev served, lined up his soldiers and, having explained to them the harmfulness of unauthorized absences, ordered Lazarev to be tied to the bars of the weapons room.

After which, on the order of the officer, two soldiers tormented the “defector” all night: first they beat the unfortunate man with forged boots, fists and clubs, causing his eye to leak out. Then the guy was tortured with shocks electric current, tortured to death: on the morning of December 6, Lazarev died, crucified on bars. But only two direct executors of the order received real prison terms, albeit short ones. Captain Shakovets was given a two-year suspended sentence, and General Surovikin, apparently, received another thank you for bringing the division to the front lines; he also earned the Order of Military Merit, it seems, at the same time.

Another story from the same period is completely connected with a massacre already in the office of the division commander himself. In March of the same 2004, Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Tsibizov contacted the garrison prosecutor's office with a statement that he had been beaten by a senior military commander - division commander, Major General Surovikin. Lieutenant Colonel Tsibizov claimed that on March 15, 2004, together with two senior officers, the general beat him in his office because he voted “for the wrong candidate” in the by-election to the State Duma from the Verkh-Isetsky district on March 14 of the same year. The general immediately rushed to accuse the lieutenant colonel of almost desertion: he allegedly did not show up for duty for a week and a half. The garrison prosecutor's office did not reveal anything: the witnesses “did not show up,” and Tsibizov was forced to withdraw his statement. At the headquarters of the Volga-Ural Military District, the very fact of the general’s massacre categorically denied.

But the next incident became completely egregious: on April 21 of the same 2004, in the same office of Surovikin in the closed 32nd military town, his deputy for armaments, Colonel Andrei Shtakal, committed suicide. The 37-year-old colonel is survived by his wife and daughter. By this fact A criminal case was opened, but it was soon closed. As presented by the military prosecutors, the situation was as follows: the deputy commander of the PUrVO troops, Lieutenant General Alexander Stolyarov, came to the division to conduct an inspection and was dissatisfied with the results of the inspection. He summoned Shtakal and Surovikin for a conversation in Surovikin’s office.

Further, I quote, “remarks were made to the servicemen during the inspection. In response, Colonel Shtakal [committed suicide]. Thus, the investigation established that Surovikin was in no way guilty of this tragedy.” In reality, no evidence was presented that Surovikin was also subjected to a scolding by the authorities and, in general, that this happened in the presence of the castle troops of the district. Then the official version suddenly changed and there were no more witnesses left, and the question of incitement to suicide disappeared as if by itself.

A good commander doesn't have officers shoot themselves in his office with service weapons

Guard Colonel Andrei Shtakal is a paratrooper, his reputation is impeccable, his colleagues unanimously spoke of him as a good commander and a very decent person. He is a participant in combat operations, a holder of the Order of Courage, on his jacket is the badge of the Military Academy (apparently named after Frunze), a badge for many parachute jumps. Andrei Shtakal was appointed deputy commander of the 34th Motorized Rifle Division for armaments in June 2003. I didn’t think about any suicide: not the same character, a real fighter. And the colonel didn’t have any service pistol with him! The investigation made public the following detail: the shot was fired not from Colonel Shtakal’s service pistol, but from someone else’s, allegedly belonging to a certain officer Bochkin. And according to one version, this Bochkin gave his award pistol to Shtakal so that he would hand it over to the warehouse, but the deputy division commander allegedly for some reason did not do this. Forensic experts have their own addition: the nature of the colonel’s wound indicated that he did not want to commit suicide, but only intended to imitate it, but “did not calculate the angle of application of the weapon to his temple.”

True, my interlocutor, who once served in one of the departments of the General Staff, says that even if this is suicide, then “a good commander’s officers do not shoot themselves in the office with service weapons.”

The case was quickly closed, and Surovikin himself was sent from the Purvo Military District to Chechnya, commander of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division. But there, too, the division commander had an emergency: on February 21, 2005, under the collapsed wall of a poultry farm in the village of Prigorodny, Grozny district, nine reconnaissance soldiers of the 70th motorized rifle regiment of the 42nd division were killed, and three more were seriously wounded. By official version, the militants fired from a grenade launcher. General Surovikin immediately became a television star, swearing in front of the television cameras that for everyone dead soldier will destroy three militants. But what kind of scouts are these who allow the enemy to approach their location? Soon a version of self-destruction was put forward. But journalists from Novaya Gazeta then found out that there was no battle and no shelling, and one of the tipsy servicemen accidentally fired a grenade launcher inside the premises. Or he handled the mine carelessly.

But the proceedings stalled, and soon General Surovikin was transferred from Chechnya to Voronezh, to be promoted to chief of staff - first deputy of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army: he was not quite 39 years old. When Anatoly Serdyukov became Minister of Defense, Surovikin’s career began to grow rapidly, and since April 2008 he is already the commander of the 20th Army. He stayed in this position for seven months, and in November of the same year he quickly became the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GOU GSH RF Armed Forces). The GOU is a key department of the General Staff; it is responsible for strategic and operational planning of military operations and operational command and control of troops.

Traditionally - both in Soviet times and in modern history Russia - GOU were headed by military leaders with predominantly rich staff experience, while Surovikin spent most of his military career in purely command positions. In addition, he came to the second most important post in the General Staff without having served as the chief of staff of a military district and commander of the district's troops. That is, he did not go through all the required (and even mandatory for the head of the GOU) steps of the army ladder, before that all his experience was limited to the tactical (division) and operational levels (army). Surovikin lasted only 14 months in his new position. From January to December 2010, our hero was the chief of staff - first deputy of the military units of the Purvo Military District: the service life is purely nominal, less than a year! But along the way, Surovikin graduated from the Military Institute of the Moscow Region, receiving a law degree.

General and his wife

Soon followed by a transfer to the already well-known Yekaterinburg - chief of staff - first deputy commander of the newly created Central Military District (CMD). But he stayed in this position for a very short time, and in fact, it was completely formal, since since 2011 he had been on a long business trip: he was organizing the military police. He was transferred from Yekaterinburg quietly and behind the scenes, seemingly at the urgent request of the commander of the district troops, Colonel-General Vladimir Chirkin, who was tired of the numerous scandals in which Surovikin had again managed to appear. This time the scandals were related to the business of his wife, Anna Borisovna Surovikina. That’s what they said about the general in Yekaterinburg at that time: this is the same one who is the husband of a talented businesswoman.

Wives, as we know, are the greatest asset of the Russian bureaucratic elite: they are all exceptionally talented in business, and therefore equally exceptionally rich. Military officials are no exception here: while they vegetate on meager salaries, their spouses work furiously, increasing the family wealth and fortune. So General Surovikin has an extremely talented, and therefore wealthy, wife. According to data for 2016, when Surovikin commanded the troops of the Eastern Military District, his wife, with an income of 44.021 million rubles, took second place in the list of the richest spouses of Ministry of Defense employees. She had three apartments with a total area of ​​479 square meters. m, three land plots with a total area of ​​about 4.1 thousand square meters. m, house 686 sq. m, parking space (12 sq. m.) and non-residential premises (182 sq. m.). Also, the general’s wife was the owner of a Lexus RX 350.

Her husband earned much less that year: 10.4 million rubles. But he also has two apartments with a total area of ​​623 square meters. m and a Dodge Nitro passenger car. Anna Borisovna Surovikina, together with her daughter and cousin Alexander Misharin (governor Sverdlovsk region in 2009–2012), was the founder of the Argusles sawmill (the name “Argus-SFK” is also found). According to the then deputy of the Yekaterinburg Regional Duma Leonid Volkov (now he heads the headquarters of Alexei Navalny), they sawed not only the forest, but also the regional budget. It is also known that Misharin is a long-time and close friend of Surovikin. As the UralInformBuro resource wrote back in April 2012, the general’s talented wife “not only runs a forestry business with the daughter of Governor Misharin, but in conjunction with security officials and regional government officials strives to enter any profitable areas of business.”

After publications about his wife, as Leonid Volkov claimed, he was allegedly given threats from the general: “This man, over the past week, in different groups of people, spoke several times that he would kill me, because I offend his wife, slander her, and so on.” further. He did not convey any threats to me personally. He expressed his threats among people who obviously know me and communicate. The scandal was noisy, but it ended almost in a flash: the general’s wife sued Volkov, the court ordered him to remove something from the blog and pay moral compensation in the amount of 5 thousand rubles. When Misharin ceased to be the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, and General Surovikin was transferred from Yekaterinburg, then things went from bad to worse for the Argus-SFK company: huge debts accrued for renting land and forest to the regional budget - several tens of millions of rubles, the forest Surovikin's wife and Misharin's daughter were taken away through the court, and the "innovative enterprise" went bankrupt.

"He'll love you to death"

In the summer of 2011, the diocese of Surovikin experienced another full-fledged emergency: on the night of June 2-3, a fire occurred at the 102nd arsenal of the Central Military District, in Udmurtia. The warehouse stored 172.5 thousand tons of ammunition, of which 163.6 thousand tons - almost 95 percent - were destroyed by fire and explosions. At that time, 12 generals were brought to disciplinary responsibility, including Deputy Minister of Defense General of the Army Dmitry Bulgakov and the commander of the district troops, Colonel General Vladimir Chirkin. The district chief of staff was not punished because he was on vacation at the time. But Major General Sergei Chuvakin, who temporarily performed his duties, was punished. They whispered again that the general had a very “good dry cleaner” that did an excellent job of removing stains from his uniform.

Surovikin himself left in the fall of 2012, one might say, for another promotion: for about a year he served as chief of staff - first deputy commander of the troops of the Eastern Military District (EMD), then was appointed commander of the troops of the EMD. On one of the military forums I found the following description of an officer who worked with him: “very smart, but he will love everyone around him to death. From 9.00 to 20.00 there are continuous meetings, from 20.00 to midnight - managers will get to their subordinates and begin to solve problems that needed to be solved in working hours, and in Moscow the working day is in full swing, they are yanking, and from 6.00 they are preparing for morning meetings. A bunch of certificates, slides, etc. ... In short: woe from mind." Another officer, who also served under Surovikin in the Eastern Military District, complained that all of his official and even night time was spent only filling out notebooks and plans, preparing photo reports, drawing posters and writing numerous reports, but during the inspections they did not check combat training at all, but only physical training, and even those same notebooks and plans. In December 2013, Surovikin received the rank of colonel general.