FILE - Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, Commander of the Russian forces in Syria, speaks, with a map of Syria projected on the screen in the back, at a briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Friday, June 9, 2017. Russia's Defense Ministry announced that air force chief, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, would be the commander of all Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. The statement marked the first official appointment of a single commander for the entire Russian force in Ukraine. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)