Russia has officially appointed Colonel General Victor Afzalov as the new commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces, replacing Sergei Suroviki, dismissed after the armed rebellion last June of the Wagner Group led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin.
According to the official agencies TASS and RIA Nóvosti, the appointment was made official the day before, although Afzálov had already been acting commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces since last August.
Afzalov was born on June 9, 1968, graduated from the Pushkin Air Defense Higher Military School of Radioelectronics (1989), the Air Defense Military University (2000) and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (2010).
In July 2017, he was appointed commander of the Air Force and Air Defense Army of the Eastern Military District, and in August 2018, head of the main headquarters of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Surovikin, who was also a commander and later demoted to deputy commander of the Russian forces operating in Ukraine, would have in turn been appointed chairman of the Coordination Commission on Air Defense Affairs of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The military high command, despite having urged the Wagnerites to surrender when they began their rebellion on June 24, fell into disgrace because they were Prigozhin’s liaison during the taking of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and he said at the time that the general He was the only one I respected.
Surovikin disappeared from the public on the same day of the mutiny and only reappeared on September 4 with his wife after information that he had been arrested and interrogated for his alleged close relationship with Prigozhin, who died in August in a plane accident that has not yet been clarified.