Surovikin Brings Syria To Ukraine As Russia Targets Power Grid

Russian Air Force General Sergei Surovikin is living up to his dubious reputation.

Weeks on from an appointment as commander of Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine, Surovikin is running the Syria playbook. Ukrainian officials on Saturday implored the West for better air defenses after Surovikin again targeted civilian infrastructure in an apparent bid to knock out the country’s electricity with winter approaching.

Surovikin, whose ruthless campaign in Syria earned him the nickname “General Armageddon,” fired three-dozen missiles at Ukraine Saturday, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, leaving some 1.5 million people without power. Russian rockets targeted Kyiv, Volyn, Kirovograd and Odessa, among other locales.

Zelensky, who said Ukraine managed to intercept around half of the projectiles, shared the image (below) on Telegram, calling it “just one example” of “strikes on critical objects.” He accused Russia of “terror tactics.”

On October 10, The Kremlin cited sabotage on the Kerch Strait Bridge to justify what Putin called “mass strikes” against Ukrainian infrastructure. Although Putin suggested those attacks didn’t necessarily presage a concerted campaign, Russia’s actions since then tell a different story. Surovikin has repeatedly deployed Iranian drones this month against Ukraine, for example, a questionable tactic. Iran has allegedly sent technical support staff to Crimea to assist Russia in operating the UAVs.

You’ll note that Russia’s air campaign in Syria came at the request of slain Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who in late 2015 coordinated a fearsome ground assault on Aleppo using Hezbollah and allied Shiite militiamen brought over from Iraq to bolster Bashar al-Assad’s beleaguered forces. The Surovikin-Soleimani combination eventually overwhelmed the opposition, which included a hodgepodge of Sunni extremist elements, some of which had ties to al-Qaeda.

Surovikin didn’t stop there. During a 2019 offensive aimed at breaking hotly contested Idlib, the Syrian-Russian alliance “used tactics reminiscent of the alliance’s takeover of Aleppo and eastern Ghouta, launching cluster munitions, incendiary weapons and explosive weapons with wide-area effects, including barrel bombs, in populated areas, striking homes, schools  and healthcare facilities kill[ing] and wound[ing] countless civilians,” according to a 2020 report from Human Rights Watch.

At a Security Council meeting in May of 2019, the Russian ambassador denied allegations that Russia’s attacks in Syria were aimed at civilians or civilian infrastructure. Russia, Moscow claimed, was targeting “terrorists.” The Assad government alleged more than 100 healthcare facilities were actually lawful military targets due to the presence of extremists. Surovikin was commander for at least part of the Idlib siege.

Iran’s involvement in Surovikin’s campaign against Ukraine thus comes as no surprise. I’d note that although there actually were terrorists in Syria (lots of them, actually), Ukraine isn’t exactly famous for hardline Sunni jihadists. Although you could plausibly describe the assassination of Daria Dugina as a terrorist act, assuming it was, as US intelligence reportedly believes, carried out at the behest of elements within the Ukrainian government, calling the Kerch Strait Bridge bombing a “terrorist” attack is a bit more of a stretch. This is a war, after all, and in addition to being a key military supply route, that bridge is the symbol of Russian power projection.

Notwithstanding the onslaught of propaganda emanating from Russia and associated web portals in the lead-up to Putin’s invasion (which some of those portals claimed was a Western fabrication right up until tanks rumbled across the border), Ukraine simply isn’t a country overrun by extremists of any sort. It’s corrupt, yes. But it’s also a democracy, and the greatest threat to its democratic institutions is in fact the Kremlin, which steadfastly refused to recognize the nation’s claims to self-governance. With attempts to influence political outcomes in Kyiv plainly failing, Putin seized Crimea, supported breakaway, self-styled republics and then, when that failed to produce the desired results, branded Zelensky a “Nazi” and invaded.

Just like everything else Putin’s tried to do in Ukraine, the invasion is failing, so now, Surovikin is subjecting the populace to the Syria treatment. That likely won’t work either. The West’s support for anti-Assad elements in Syria was hamstrung by the presence of extremists in virtually every opposition coalition ever forged during the country’s civil war. Eventually, the only viable option was direct support for the Kurdish opposition, but that too was complicated by acrimony with Ankara. Western Syria (Assad’s power corridor) was given over entirely to the Assad-Russia-Iran nexus.

In Ukraine, Surovikin is fighting to usurp the existing government, not restore it as in Syria. And there are no terrorists. Certainly not any jihadists, and not really any other kinds either. Outside of the historical, imperialist imperative that exists only in his mind, Putin has no excuse for being in Ukraine. The more aggressive Surovikin is at targeting civilian infrastructure, the more likely it is that the West will provide advanced air defenses and other support, which in turn means Surovikin will have to try harder and harder or else resort to cruder and cruder tactics. Tactics like blowing up hydroelectric dams (which Zelensky claims might be imminent near Kherson), playing Russian roulette with nuclear facilities or with actual nukes.

According to Ukrenergo, which operates Ukraine’s power grid, Saturday’s strikes were “comparable or even exceed” the attacks on October 10, which marked the opening salvo of Surovikin’s ongoing air campaign.

Strategically, the problem for Surovikin is that unlike Syria, where the ground operation was overseen by the single-most capable non-US field commander in the world (in Soleimani) and carried out in part by the battle-hardened, famously capable Hezbollah, Putin’s ground game in Ukraine is by all accounts a total fiasco. The more reluctant conscripts Putin sends to die on the frontlines, the worse it’ll get. The Kremlin doesn’t have enough mercenaries to fight an actual war against a sovereign state that’s openly backed by NATO. Surovikin can terrorize the populace, but he can’t necessarily hold territory for Putin. Tellingly, the Kremlin was compelled to declare martial law in all four annexed territories this week.

Ultimately, Surovikin’s air campaign will likely end in some sort of failure, and all sorts of war crime accusations. Surovikin, by the way, is more than willing to adopt Putin’s line that Russia’s territorial integrity was someone threatened by the Zelensky government. In 2017, during a military ceremony in Moscow, he said that while “performing combat missions in Syria, not for a minute did we forget that we were defending Russia.”