Busted Russian military leader was secret Wagner VIP member

The Russian military leader being interrogated over possible advanced knowledge of the armed mutiny was secretly a VIP member of the mercenary Wagner Group behind it, according to damning documents.

Gen. Sergey Surovikin — who once led Russia’s war on Ukraine — was one of 30 senior Russian military and intelligence officials listed as secret members of the feared paramilitary group, CNN said.

The ruthless leader known as “General Armageddon” was assigned a personal VIP Wagner registration number in 2018, CNN said, citing documents obtained by Russia’s Dossier Center.

The other senior military members were not identified.

While there is no evidence he was paid by Wagner, CNN said, it highlights his close relationship with the mercenary group that President Vladimir Putin accused of almost starting a “civil war.”

Surovikin, 56, is suspected of having advance knowledge of the weekend’s attempted mutiny led by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The general — who remained a deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine — has not been seen since Saturday, when he made an appeal against the uprising that’s been likened to a “hostage video.”

Numerous sources have said he has been arrested — with a source close to Russia’s Defense Ministry telling the Moscow Times that they’ve “gotten him by the balls.”

The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, told the bloc’s summit on Thursday that “some generals have been arrested,” suggesting that Putin was “in a cleaning mode” after the biggest challenge to his 23 years in power.

The Kremlin has repeatedly refused to discuss Surovikin’s whereabouts, after earlier dismissing reports of his advance knowledge about the Wagner operation as “just rumors.”

Surovikin was replaced in January as head of the war effort in Ukraine by Gen. Valery Gerasimov.

Gerasimov’s fate also is unclear after the abortive mutiny, having been mysteriously absent in other public displays of unity by Putin and his military heads.

However, Prigozhin and his men — blamed for many of the worst atrocities in the Ukraine war — were offered amnesty in Belarus, with Russia saying it had closed its investigation without charges, despite Putin condemning them as traitors.