A senior Russian military official was shot in Moscow and has been hospitalized, authorities said early Friday, in the latest attack on the country's top military brass.
Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, a deputy chief of Russian military intelligence, was shot several times by an unknown assailant in a residential building in the northwest of the capital, Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The alleged shooter fled from the scene, the statement said.
Investigators have opened a criminal case, and are speaking with eyewitnesses and reviewing surveillance footage, it added.
The statement did not detail Alekseyev’s condition or specify who may be behind the attack.
The shooting comes a day after the latest trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi between the U.S., Ukraine and Russia, whose delegation is led by the chief of military intelligence, Adm. Igor Kostyukov.
After the talks, Washington and Moscow announced that they had agreed to reestablish high level military-to-military dialogue, which was suspended in 2021.
The shooting of Alekseyev is the latest in a spate of attacks against senior military figures inside Russia, many of which have been blamed on Ukraine.
Just over a month ago, another high-ranking Russian military official, Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, was killed by a bomb that exploded under his car in Moscow. In April, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik was also killed in a car bomb in the Moscow region, which the Kremlin accused Ukraine of orchestrating. And in December 2024, Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for killing the head of Russia's chemical, radiological and biological weapons unit, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov.
The Kremlin said Friday that Putin was being briefed. It was undeniable that senior military figures were under greater threat amid the war in Ukraine, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that their safety was a matter for the security services.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested this latest "terrorist act" was an attempt by Ukraine to disrupt peace talks. There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to Friday's shooting.
Alekseyev, 64, played a prominent role during the mutiny by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the summer of 2023. He was filmed speaking to Prigozhin and later recorded a video calling the uprising a stab in the back of President Vladimir Putin and an attempted coup.
Alekseyev was awarded the Hero of Russia award in 2017, according to state media agency Ria.
He was sanctioned by the E.U. in 2019 in connection with the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England with the nerve agent Novichok. A U.K. public inquiry found that Putin and the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, better known as the GRU, were responsible for the poisoning.
Alekseyev was also sanctioned in the U.S. in 2016 and 2018, along with a number of other GRU officials, for his alleged role in cyberattacks.
