A top Russian military intelligence general was fighting for his life today after being shot in Moscow.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, 64, was shot by an unknown assailant who fired several shots, hitting him in the back, before fleeing the scene.
He was said to be in a serious condition.
The 7am shooting happened close to his home, in the lobby of a building on Volokolamsk Highway.
A witness described hearing a gunshot and cries of ‘help’ as the incident unfolded. ‘I went out and he was lying there covered in blood, and a neighbour was screaming, ‘Call an ambulance, he’s been shot’,’ the witness said.
The high-ranking military officer was attacked as he left his 24th floor apartment.
He remained conscious after the shooting, and emergency services were trying to save him, reports said. Alekseyev was quickly rushed to hospital.
The commander is deputy head of the GRU military intelligence service. His boss, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, headed the Russian negotiating team at the peace talks with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi this week.
Given his senior role in the GRU, Alekseyev was responsible for the storage, transportation and use of the deadly nerve agent Novichok in the Salisbury poisoning attack in 2018, the EU sanctions list said.
There was speculation the shooting could have involved Ukrainian intelligence, though others suggested it may have been linked to internal power struggles in Russia.
The GRU has been involved in countless operations against Ukraine in the war, and the general was seen as linked to reconnaissance of targets for airstrikes in the conflict.
Alekseyev is highly rated by Putin, and came into the spotlight during Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny in 2023, when he dubbed his the Wagner private army’s rebellion ‘a stab in the back of the country and the president’.
He was also seen as playing a decisive role in the arrest in 2024 and jailing a year later of former Russian deputy defence minister Timur Ivanov, 50, on corruption charges.
Alexeyev has been awarded by Putin as a Hero of the Russian Federation for ‘courage and heroism demonstrated in the performance of military duty’.
He is seen as a founder of the notorious Wagner private army, and the recently disbanded Espanyola brigade, the backbone of which consisted of Russian football hooligans.
There was astonishment that – following Ukrainian assassinations strikes on senior Russian military figures – he appeared to have little security to protect him.
