A top Russian general imprisoned in the wake of a coup by mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin has been freed, according to two US officials and a person close to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The general, Sergei Surovikin, who was seen as an ally of Mr. Prigozhin and earned the nickname “General Armageddon” for his brutal tactics in Syria, disappeared from public view in June after the mercenary leader and members of his Wagner outfit has moved against the leadership of the Russian military.
American officials said the general had a foreword about the uprising, and hours after it began, Russian authorities released a video showing an uncomfortable-looking General Surovikin calling to the Wagner warriors who stopped.
US officials said that while General Surovikin appeared to have been released from formal detention, it remained unclear whether there were any remaining restrictions on his movement or other limitations imposed by Russian authorities.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday that it was not possible to comment on whether General Surovikin was under investigation.
General Surovikin was released in the days after Mr. Prigozhin in a plane crash late last month, said the person close to the Russian Defense Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, like US officials, to discuss a sensitive topic.
The general has retained his rank for now and is technically still a military officer, but he no longer has any career prospects, the person said. Russian state news reported last month that General Surovikin had been formally removed as head of Russia’s aerospace forces.
On Monday, General Surovikin appeared for the first time since the June uprising in a photo posted on social media by a news outlet run by a Russian news figure, Ksenia Sobchak. In the photo, the general appears in civilian clothes, wearing sunglasses, a hat and a button-down shirt, walking outside next to his wife in front of an ivy-covered wall. The location is not immediately clear from the photo.
“General Sergei Surovikin is gone: alive, healthy, at home with his family in Moscow,” read a post on a channel on the Telegram messaging app associated with Ms. Sobchak.
Aleksei A. Venediktov, who headed the liberal Echo of Moscow radio station until the Kremlin shut it down last year, wrote late Monday that General Surovikin was at home with his family.
“He is on leave and at the disposal of the Ministry of Defense,” Mr. Venediktov posted on his Telegram channel.
From October to January, General Surovikin was the top Russian official in charge of operations in Ukraine. He oversaw the withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson and the transition to a defensive strategy, which included the construction of a wall of extensive defenses known as the “Surovikin line” that prevented Ukrainian forces from their counter- offensive.
Mr. Prigozhin knew General Surovikin because Wagner fighters served in Syria with Russian forces while he was the top commander there. The mercenary leader praised the general’s appointment last year, calling him a legendary figure and the most capable commander in the Russian military.
But in January, the Kremlin sidelined General Surovikin, appointing the chief of the general staff, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, as the commander in charge of the forces in Ukraine. The change marked the beginning of a wider loss of power for Mr. Prigozhin, who soon clashed with General Gerasimov and the Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, as Wagner’s forces suffered heavy losses in an effort to take the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Those tensions eventually led Mr. Prigozhin launched the short-lived uprising, which he said was aimed at removing two Russian defense chiefs, not to topple President Vladimir V. Putin.
As speculation swirled about General Surovikin’s whereabouts in July, a top lawmaker who heads the Russian Parliament’s defense committee told a reporter that the general was “resting.”
Mr. was killed. Prigozhin on August 23, when a private plane carrying him and other Wagner leaders from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed. Petersburg in the Tver region of Russia. US officials said they suspect an explosion on the aircraft caused the crash.
The Kremlin called Western suggestions that Mr. Putin was involved in the event a “complete lie.”
Valery Safronova contributed reporting.
