Deputy chief in Russia’s military intelligence shot and wounded in Moscow

In this image made from video provided by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, on Jun. 23, 2023, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev speaks to servicemen on an undisclosed location. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

MOSCOW -- A deputy chief of Russia’s military intelligence agency was shot and wounded in Moscow on Friday in an attack that follows a series of assassinations of senior military officers that Russia has blamed on Ukraine.

Lt.-Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev was hospitalized after being shot several times by an unidentified assailant at an apartment building in northwestern Moscow, Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.

She didn’t say who could be behind the attack on the 64-year-old who has served as the first deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, since 2011.

He was decorated with the Hero of Russia medal for his role in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria and in June 2023 was shown on state TV speaking to mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin when his Wagner Group seized the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don during his short-lived mutiny.

The shooting came a day after Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators wrapped up two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, aimed at ending the nearly four-year-old conflict in Ukraine. The Russian delegation was led by Alekseyev’s boss, military intelligence chief Adm. Igor Kostyukov.

President Vladimir Putin was informed about the attack, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who added that law enforcement agencies need to step up protection of senior military officers during the conflict in Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities haven’t commented on the attack.

Asked about the shooting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it would be up to law enforcement agencies to pursue the investigation but described it as an apparent “terrorist act” by Ukraine intended to derail peace talks.

The business daily Kommersant said the attacker, posing as a delivery person, shot the general twice in the stairway of his apartment building, wounding him in the foot and the arm. Alekseyev tried to wrest away the gun and was shot again in the chest before the attacker fled, the report said.

Alekseyev, who was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, rose steadily through the ranks to lead operations of Russian military intelligence in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.

He was sanctioned by Washington. for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and also faced sanctions in the U.K. and the European Union over his alleged role in the 2018 poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, England.

Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russian authorities have blamed Kyiv for several assassinations of military officers and public figures in Russia. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for some of them.

In December, a car bomb killed Lt.-Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff.

In April, another senior Russian military officer, Lt.-Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff, was killed by a bomb placed in his car parked near his apartment building just outside Moscow.

A Russian man who previously lived in Ukraine pleaded guilty to carrying out the attack and said he had been paid by Ukraine’s security services.

Days after Moskalik’s killing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he received a report from the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence agency on the “liquidation” of top Russian military figures, adding that “justice inevitably comes” although he didn’t mention Moskalik’s name.

In December 2024, Lt.-Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for the attack.