Fears Putin’s ‘General Armageddon’ has been PURGED after vanishing for 2 weeks & missing wife’s birthday party
VLADIMIR Putin's "General Armageddon" has not been seen in almost two weeks and missed his wife's birthday - further stoking fears he has been purged.
General Sergey Surovikin - renowned for his merciless manoeuvres - vanished in the fallout of Yevgeny Prigozhin's aborted "coup" after speculation he knew of the Wagner chief's plans.
The former commander of Russia's forces in Ukraine has been feared dead for weeks after disappearing from sight, while the Kremlin remains tight-lipped about his whereabouts.
Almost two weeks on from the 56-year-old's last appearance, his absence from his glamorous wife Anna's birthday is further fuelling rumours that "General Armageddon" has been killed.
Various reports stated that Surovikin had been arrested and was under interrogation last month not long after he released a brief video calling for the mercenaries to stop their rebellion.
He was rumoured to have had knowledge of Wagner's plot to oust Russia's top military leaders - a claim which US intelligence sources confirmed to the New York Times.
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If still alive and found guilty, the brutal warmonger could face a treason charge and up to 20 years in prison.
A source told the Moscow Times: "Apparently, he [Surovikin] chose the side [of Prigozhin during the rebellion], and they grabbed him by the balls."
Another source close to the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed his arrest but said that details are not even being discussed internally.
Surovikin's whereabouts remain unknown amid contradicting theories.
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However, a former national security adviser to Georgia claimed that "things are not going well for Surovikin", especially after he missed his wife's birthday on July 4.
The Russia expert also added that Surovikin's family had "stopped communicating even with the General's very close friends and colleagues".
"General Armageddon" took over Putin's faltering war in Ukraine in October amid fears he would bring the tactics he employed in Syria to pound the country.
He earned his chilling nickname for his bloody role in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern nation when forces under his command killed thousands of civilians and flattened the city of Aleppo.
Through gas, barrel bombs and other horror weapons of war he made his "blood-soaked" fortune, investigators previously told The Sun Online.
Meanwhile, Wagner boss Prigozhin - Surovikin's alleged pal - has also not been seen since he was shipped off to Belarus to begin his exile after his botched rebellion.
Vlad's former lapdog staged an armed insurrection on June 23 with the stated aim to oust Russia's military leaders as he turned on the top brass in Moscow.
However, the steaming rebellion was blown out after Prigozhin struck a bitter deal with Vladimir Putin putting an end to an astonishing 36-hours that saw Wagner forces reach within 125 miles of the capital.
He was widely understood to have been hunkered down in Belarus, which is considered a puppet state for Putin.
However, the warlord appears to have gone to ground and his location remains unknown, while the Kremlin refuses to comment on his whereabouts.
The mystery deepened when Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko startlingly announced that the Wagner boss was not in his country, but in Russia.
The dictator said: "As for Prigozhin, he's in St. Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus."
In response, the Kremlin bizarrely declared they were "not following" the movements of Putin's enemy number one.
Instead, Russian security forces ransacked his swanky mansion in St. Petersburg.
The extraordinary pictures released on Wednesday showed a house full of gold bars, guns, sledgehammers and even a framed photo of severed heads.
A business jet linked to Prigozhin left St Petersburg for Moscow on Wednesday and was heading for southern Russia on Thursday, according to flight tracking data.
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But it was not clear if the mercenary chief was on board - if he was, it would be breaking the exile terms set by Putin.
Prigozhin allegedly left after retrieving his things from St Petersburg last week, though these claims haven't been verified.
