Russian army general shot in Moscow as foreign minister blames Ukraine for

A top Russian military intelligence general was shot in an apartment building in Moscow on Friday and hospitalized, the Kremlin said, describing it as an assassination attempt orchestrated by Ukraine.

There was no comment from kyiv, which has claimed responsibility for the killings of several high-ranking military officers since Moscow launched its large scale offensive in February 2022.

Russian investigators said Vladimir Alekseyev, the deputy head of Moscow’s GRU military intelligence, sanctioned in the West for his alleged role in cyberattacks and charges that he organized a nerve agent attack about a Russian defector in Britain, he was shot by an “unidentified individual.”

Investigators said the suspect fled the scene and the general was admitted to a hospital.

In televised comments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the “terrorist act” as it tries to “disrupt the negotiation process” seeking to end the four-year war.

On Thursday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff announced that Ukraine and Russia had agreed exchange 314 prisoners during the second round of US-brokered peace talks between the two countries in Abu Dhabi.

The Kremlin said its secret services were investigating the incident and keeping President Vladimir Putin informed.

“The special services are doing their job,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“We wish the general a speedy recovery. We hope so,” he added.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Friday that Alekseyev had been shot “several times.” There was no update on his condition other than that he had been hospitalized.

“Investigative actions and operational search measures are being carried out to identify the person or persons involved in the commission of the aforementioned crime,” Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.

In a northwestern suburb of Moscow, a forensic truck was parked in front of an apartment block and investigators had cordoned off access, News journalists found.

Skripal Connection

Alekseyev, a career military officer, has been the first deputy head of the GRU since 2011.

He has been under Western sanctions for alleged cyber attacks and for what the West said was his role in organizing the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018.

That assassination attempt left a member of the British public dead and severely strained ties between London and Moscow.

Alekseyev also led intelligence operations during the Russian intervention in Syria on behalf of now-ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

And in the midst of the Ukraine war, he was sent to negotiate with Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, during his attempted mutiny against the Russian military brass in 2023.

At the time, Alekseyev was filmed sitting with Prigozhin in a Russian military complex taken over by Wagner, trying to persuade the mercenary chief to withdraw his troops.

Prigozhin died months after the aborted rebellion when his plane exploded in midair.

Previous targeted attacks

Since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine almost four years ago, Russian authorities have blamed kyiv for several murders of military officers and public figures in Russia. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for some of them. So far nothing has been said about Alekseyev’s shooting.

In December, a car bomb killed Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarovhead of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

In April, another senior Russian military officer, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational department of the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near his apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow.

A Russian 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 assassination, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he received a report from the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence agency about the “liquidation” of senior Russian military figures, adding that “justice inevitably comes,” although he did not mention Moskalik by name.

In December 2024, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the military 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.

Ukrainian military figures have also been attacked. Last July, Ukraine’s security agency said it located and killed Russian agents suspected of shoot one of his superior officers to death in the Ukrainian capital.