Putin unleashes “General Armageddon” who called for war to “go nuclear” after years in exile

A desperate Vladimir Putin is set to deploy notorious warlord “General Armageddon” to the Ukraine frontline after years in exile, The U.S. Sun reports.

Sergei Surovikin, 59, once endorsed using nuclear weapons early in the conflict and is reportedly back in Moscow, according to Russian military commentator Colonel Viktor Baranets, who said the Kremlin and Defence Ministry were weighing how to fit the “tough, decisive and powerful” commander into the current battlefield situation.

Surovikin led Russia’s entire Ukraine war campaign from October 2022 until Putin removed him in January 2023 amid fears he had backed a coup attempt led by Wagner warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was later killed in a suspicious plane crash widely believed to have been ordered by the Kremlin.

Notorious for his brutality in Syria and Chechnya, Surovikin was subsequently exiled to oversee Russian military operations in north Africa.

Speculation is now mounting that he could spearhead a renewed push to seize the Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, or a fresh offensive toward Kyiv via occupied Chernihiv.

His possible return comes as new figures show Putin increasingly targeting civilians under a “no rules” war strategy, with the UN Human Rights Office recording over 400 civilian casualties weekly in Ukraine during the first eight months of 2026, a 55 per cent rise on the same period last year, bringing the total to 15,280 killed or injured.