MOSCOW — A prominent Russian general who is deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence was shot and seriously injured Friday in the latest attack on military leaders.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev was immediately taken to hospital after the attack at a residential complex on the northwestern outskirts of the city, but his condition is unknown.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said its officials had arrived at the scene and investigators were searching for the gunman. The commission has opened a criminal case for what it calls the attempted murder of a high-ranking Ministry of Defense official.
Alexeev is number two in Russia’s GRU military intelligence service and is the latest senior military official to be targeted in the capital since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.
He was targeted by European Union sanctions after the GRU was accused of involvement in the 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury, England.
Alexeev played a key role during the Ukraine war and participated in talks with Ukraine during Russia’s siege of Mariupol in 2022.
He was also sent to negotiate with Evgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, which led a short and bloody rebellion in June 2023.
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His boss at the GRU, Igor Kostyukov, is the head of the Russian negotiating team participating in security talks with the United States and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the shooting. “First of all, we hope that the general survives and recovers. We hope that will happen,” he told reporters.
It is not yet known who was behind Friday morning’s shooting.
Ukraine has claimed several attacks against Russian military personnel in the past. Russian intelligence officials claimed to have thwarted an attempted attack on Russian soldiers in St. Petersburg late last month.
An Uzbek man was jailed in January for killing another general, Igor Kirillov, in an explosion outside a Moscow apartment complex in 2024. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service said it was behind the attack.
In December 2025, an explosive detonated under a car in Moscow, killing another senior GRU official, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvalov. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, he was the head of the military’s operational training department. — Agency
