Lieutenant General Andrey Sychevoi, Commander of the West Group

The name of Sychevoi was mentioned in the message of the Ministry of Defense on the inspection of the troops by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Andrei Ivanovich Sychevoi was born in the village of Troitskaya, Krymsky District, Krasnodar Territory, he is 53 years old. He graduated from the Ulyanovsk Guards Higher Tank Command School, the Combined Arms Academy. M. V. Frunze and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. He served in tank and motorized rifle units, rose to the rank of chief of staff of the combined arms army of the Eastern Military District. Later he took the same position in the Southern Eastern District, was appointed commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District. He was relieved of his post in November 2021.

He took part in the so-called "military operation" of Russia in Syria. In February, personal EU sanctions were adopted against Sychevy in connection with the armed invasion of Ukraine. According to the Ministry of Defense, the general was promoted to commander of the Western Military District of Russia, previously this position was held by Colonel General Alexander Zhuravlev. On June 27, this reshuffle was reported by analysts from the Conflict Intelligence Team. According to them, the chief of staff of the Western Military District, Lieutenant-General Alexei Zavizion, was also dismissed.

According to the BBC Russian Service, the commander of the 25th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade from Luga, Leningrad Region, Colonel Andrey Arkhipov, was also removed from his post. He commanded the troops that tried to capture Kharkov, where they suffered significant losses.

Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, commander of the Vostok group

More is known about Muradov's military career. Information that he heads the Vostok group appeared on July 18 in a message from the Ministry of Defense. Until February 2022, he served as Deputy Commander of the Southern Military District. According to Shoigu’s instructions, Muradov must “make priority the destruction of long-range weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, from which shelling of residential areas of settlements in Donbass and deliberate arson of fields with wheat, as well as storage facilities with grain are carried out.” Apparently, the area of ​​responsibility of the general is the territory of the so-called DPR.

In 2016, he was Russia's representative at the center for monitoring and coordinating ceasefire and stabilization of the demarcation line in Donbass. In 2017, Rustam Muradov served in Syria as a military adviser. Fought in Chechnya. In 2021, he led the Russian contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian state media Sputnik reported that Muradov personally oversaw the exchange of prisoners between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Sergei Surovikin, Commander of the South Group

The Insider wrote about Surovikin's personality on June 27, when the Ministry of Defense first declassified his role in the war in Ukraine. In 1991, by decision of the State Emergency Committee, Surovikin personally led a column of armored vehicles, which crushed people during the August coup. Then three defenders of the "White House" were killed. According to RIA Novosti, after that Surovikin ended up in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center, but soon Boris Yeltsin personally ordered the release of the military man.

In 1995, Surovikin was found guilty of several crimes at once: aiding, acquiring and selling, as well as carrying firearms and ammunition without a permit. Despite the fact that, according to the totality of articles, the military man was threatened with up to 8 years in prison, he received a one-year suspended sentence. Later, “when the investigation figured out that the officer had been set up, the charge was dropped and the conviction was extinguished,” the Proekt publication reported. It is known that in March 2004 Lieutenant Colonel Tsibizov accused Surovikin of beating him for political reasons. He soon took the application.

Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, commander of the Center group

Little is known about Colonel-General Alexander Lapin: he passed all command positions, headed the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and since 2017 he has been commander of the troops of the Central Military District. Lapin was repeatedly mentioned in the reports of the Ministry of Defense on the course of the war in Ukraine.

Lapin became most famous for the scandal associated with the awarding of his own son Denis Lapin, a lieutenant colonel who commanded a regiment advancing on Chernigov and Sumy. The award occurred after the regiment under the command of Lapin Jr. suffered significant losses near Chernigov.

Alexander Lapin himself loves to fight very much and called the war "the inevitability that is and will be." According to the general, the war "cleanses from the accumulated evil, allows you to destroy the old and build a new one."