LIVE. “Top Russian General Sergey Soerovikin Arrested” | War Ukraine and Russia

Russia’s top general Sergei Soerovikin, the deputy commander of Russian military operations in Ukraine, has been arrested. That writes ‘The Moscow Times’ based on two sources close to the Ministry of Defense.

Surovikin was sympathetic to the uprising last weekend by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary army, according to anonymous US officials, although it is unclear whether he actively supported it. This is reported by Reuters news agency. According to the anonymous officials, Western intelligence services are not sure whether Surovikin helped the uprising in any way.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Soerovikin knew that Prigozhin was planning an uprising.

Soerovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media because of his alleged ruthlessness, is a war veteran who fought in Chechnya and Syria and was decorated by Russian President Putin.

Last October, Soerovikin was put in charge of the military campaign in Ukraine, but was moved to a deputy role earlier this year following Russia’s limited success in the invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “pariah” who is “clearly losing” the war in Ukraine. But it is still too early to say whether Putin’s position has also been weakened by the stopped uprising of the Wagner militia. This was stated by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

The US president was asked by reporters in the White House on Wednesday whether Putin has emerged weakened from the Wagner uprising. “It’s hard to say, but he’s clearly losing the war,” Biden replied. Later in his answer, the president went wrong by referring to “the war in Iraq”.

The Russian president is now “a pariah all over the planet,” he added. It’s not just the NATO and EU countries that view him that way, Biden said.

The White House has so far remained very cautious about statements about the failed mutiny of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin last weekend. “We have nothing to do with these events,” the US president had declared on Monday. “It was an internal problem in Russia.”

At least eight people, including three children, were killed in a rocket attack on the center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday. In addition, 56 people were also injured, according to a new update from the authorities. According to the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, a pizza restaurant where many people were eating at the time was hit. The building that houses the restaurant has been partially destroyed.