With the Crimean bridge and Vladimir Putin's pride both smouldering the day after his 70th birthday, the Russian president was becoming desperate.
On October 8, a huge explosion took out two spans of road that linked the illegally annexed territory of Crimea to Russia.
It was a strategic and symbolic humiliation for Putin, who personally opened the bridge in 2018 by driving a big orange truck adorned with little Russian flags across it.
With parts of the 19-kilometre bridge now sitting at the bottom of the Kerch Strait, Putin blamed Ukranian intelligence services for orchestrating what he called a terrorist attack.
Ukraine's government did not confirm its involvement, but some officials were cheeky enough to imply it was a birthday present of sorts for Putin.
Hours after the blast, Putin made his counter move.
He appointed Sergei Surovikin, a notorious military veteran with a reputation for brutality, to be his new overall commander of operations in the war in Ukraine.
Nicknamed 'General Armageddon' by some Russian media outlets, it's believed Surovikin was brought in to replace Aleksandr Dvornikov, a commander sometimes called the 'Butcher of Syria'.
Both men earned their fearsome monikers on the battlefields of Syria and Chechnya, where they pounded cities to rubble.
Putin brought in General Dvornikov six months ago to rescue his faltering Ukraine operation.
But he soon faded from public view as the brutal tactics he used in Syria failed to bend the Ukrainian people to Putin's will.
In 'General Armageddon', Putin is signalling a shift to a fire-and-brimstone strategy.
But another potential strategic loss looms.
Kherson, the first city to fall into Russian hands in February, is now within striking distance of Ukrainian troops.
General Surovikin himself has admitted the situation in Kherson is "tense" and called for residents to "evacuate".
But Surovikin's history shows this is a man who will not retreat without leaving disaster in his wake.
A failed coup and a mysterious arms trafficking charge
Sergei Surovikin, who hails from Siberia, has a murky background that involves a failed coup and at least two arrests.
He began his military career in the 1980s and served for a time with Soviet special forces during the USSR's war with Afghanistan.
By 1991, he had risen through the ranks to be a captain and commander of the 1st Rifle Battalion in the Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division.
But in the dying days of the Soviet Union, Surovikin was at the centre of a political storm.
On August 18, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev woke up at his Black Sea summer home to find himself under house arrest by hardliners within the Communist Party.
The president of the Soviet Union was liberalising the USSR far too quickly for some, and men like 24-year-old Surovikin decided to snatch back power for themselves.
But many Muscovites were opposed to the coup attempt.
They erected barricades around the Russian White House, one of the most important government buildings in Moscow, in a bid to protect it from the insurrectionists.
Surovikin, commanding an infantry battalion in armoured personnel carriers, rolled into Moscow, only to find the road to the White House was blocked with street-cleaning machines and trolley buses.
A clash between the protesters and Surovikin's men broke out under an overpass.
"Surovikin demanded that his column be made way for and fired two warning shots with his pistol," court documents later stated.
"Then, he and part of his column broke through the barricades and left the scene."
In the chaos, two protesters were shot dead and a third was crushed under the tracks of an armoured vehicle.
The coup attempt collapsed a few hours later and Surovikin was swiftly arrested.
He spent seven months in military custody, during which the USSR collapsed.
Russia's newly elected president Boris Yeltsin, who opposed the August coup but was keen to unite the fledgling nation behind him, released Surovikin and argued he'd simply been following orders.
From there, Surovikin continued his climb through the ranks, with Yeltsin promoting him to major for "splendidly carrying out his military duty".
But in 1995, he was again arrested, this time on charges of illegal possession and the trafficking of firearms.
He was sentenced to a year in prison.
Surovikin, however, has always had a knack for extricating himself from trouble.
The charges against him were soon dropped when "exculpatory" evidence mysteriously surfaced.
Free once more, Surovikin set about building his menacing reputation on the battlefield.
In the war against Chechnya, a breakaway republic that tried to declare independence after the fall of the USSR, Surovikin made a threat that would grab the attention of the Russian media.
For every Russian soldier killed, Surovikin vowed to "destroy" three Chechens.
A brutal bombing campaign in Syria
Having demonstrated his ruthless ambition and readiness to execute Putin's will in Chechnya, Surovikin was handed a new challenge.
In the spring of 2016, Russian forces had stepped up their efforts to support Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, unleashing a world of pain on the city of Aleppo.
Human Rights Watch documented dozens of targeted attacks on civilian homes, hospitals, marketplaces and schools, using barrel bombs and cluster munitions to decimate their targets.
Analysts at the time suggested the targeting of civilians was a deliberate tactic "designed to pressure rebels to ally themselves with extremists, eroding [their] legitimacy".
"Russia and its Syrian government allies, [analysts] say, could be massacring Aleppo's civilians as part of a calculated strategy, aimed beyond this one city," the New York Times wrote.
By March 2017, Surovikin was deployed as the fresh-faced commander to lead Russian forces in Syria
Their task was to annihilate groups fighting Syrian government forces for control. Surovikin declared the Russian operation would not stop "until they are completely eliminated".
Under Surovikin's leadership, Russian forces ramped up air strikes targeting the Idlib province, killing hundreds of civilians and hitting at least six health care facilities, five White Helmets centres, as well as displacement camps and residential areas, according to HRW.
The man colleagues dubbed General Armageddon, "for his ability to act outside the box and tough", would be handsomely rewarded for his willingness to serve the motherland at all costs.
By year's end, Surovikin had secured a shiny new position as Commander of the Aerospace Forces and a Hero of Russia medal — the highest honorary title in the land.
"When performing combat missions in Syria, not for a minute did we forget that we were defending Russia," Surovikin told elite army personnel gathered at the award ceremony in Moscow.
The decision to put an infantry general with no flying experience at the helm of Russia's air forces was unprecedented — and reportedly ruffled some feathers among the upper military ranks.
Nonetheless, Putin again deployed his aerospace chief to take charge in Syria two years later, where the Syrian-Russian alliance scaled up its offensive in Idlib.
Over 11 months, the Human Rights Watch documented 46 ground and air attacks that killed at least 1,600 civilians and forced the displacement of 1.4 million people.
"These attacks represent only a fraction of the total attacks during that time in Idlib and surrounding areas. They reveal repeated violations of the laws of war that were apparent war crimes, and may amount to crimes against humanity," the report stated.
Along with Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin and Russian Army General Sergei Shoigu, Surovikin was listed as one of the commanders responsible for grave violations during the 2019-2020 offensive.
According to Gleb Irisov, a former Russian air force lieutenant who served under Surovikin in Syria, it was during this time that the general developed a working relationship with the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by 'Putin's chef', Yegeveny Prigozhin.
Irisov told CNN the general was "very close to Putin's regime" and "never had any political ambitions, so always executed a plan exactly as the government wanted".
But Surovikin's biggest assignment was yet to come.
Putin sends in his gold-star general to subdue Ukraine
Within hours of taking the reins in Ukraine, Surovikin lived up to his nickname.
Two days after the Crimea bridge explosion, the country was hit by the biggest wave of missile strikes since the beginning of the war.
A week later, Kyiv residents on their morning commute looked up to the sky in horror as pilotless, bomb-carrying drones screeched towards them.
The Kremlin hardliners pressuring Putin to go harder on Ukraine were thrilled.
Yevgeny Prigozhin praised Surovikin as "the best commander in the Russian army".
And the pro-Putin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who was just weeks ago calling on Russia's defence chief to die for his shameful failure in Ukraine, was thrilled by the appointment of Surovikin.
On Telegram, he described him as "a real general and a warrior" and said he believed Russian forces were "now in safe hands".
But despite mercilessly trying to destroy the will of the Ukrainian people, Surovikin also signalled that the Kremlin should prepare itself for another major humiliation.
Ukrainian troops are closing in on Kherson, and while Russian soldiers are preparing for a fight, civilians have reportedly been told to grab their "documents, money, valuables and clothes" and run.
The Moscow-installed regional governor has also signalled plans to "relocate" — or effectively kidnap — up to 60,000 Kherson residents into Russian territory.
"Further actions and plans regarding the city of Kherson will depend on the developing military-tactical situation, which is not easy," Surovikin said in a televised address on October 19.
"We will act consciously, in a timely manner, without ruling out difficult decisions."
With Kherson in a media blackout and the internet pulled from the city, it's unclear what those decisions will involve.
Putin remains allergic to retreat, but Ukraine's seemingly indomitable forces may leave him no choice.
Western officials are growing alarmed that 'General Armageddon' and others would get their vengeance on Kherson if they were forced to abandon the city.
Surovikin himself claimed that Ukraine would blow up a dam on the Dnieper River, which would unleash an enormous reservoir of water on Kherson.
Then the Kremlin insisted Ukraine was planning to drop a so-called "dirty bomb" in the region, scorching the earth with conventional explosives as well as radioactive materials like uranium.
Ukraine's foreign minister denied both claims, warning that "Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves".
Whether by flood or fire, the people of Kherson wait to see how 'General Armageddon' will unleash his wrath upon them.
