Russian Gen. Surovikin - Secret VIP member of Wagner Group

Documents shared exclusively with CNN suggest that a top Russian military commander, Gen. Sergey Surovikin, was a secret VIP member of Wagner, the private military company that staged a brief rebellion exposing disunity among senior Russian military officials.

The documents, obtained by the Russian investigative Dossier Center, showed that Surovikin had been assigned a personal VIP Wagner registration number in 2018.

Surovikin is listed along with at least 30 other senior Russian military and intelligence officials, who the Dossier Center said are also VIP Wagner members. The identities of those officials has not been revealed.

There is no evidence that Surovikin was on Wagner’s payroll but the VIP membership for so many senior figures implies an overly close relationship between the Russian military and the mercenary group.