One of Russia’s top military generals, Vladimir Alekseev, is in a critical condition after being shot while leaving his Moscow apartment earlier this morning. Lieutenant General Alekseev, a deputy director in Russia’s military intelligence agency – still best-known by its former acronym, the GRU – has been taken to hospital following reports he was shot multiple times in the back in the lobby of his apartment block in the north of the city.
The assailant fled the scene immediately after the shooting, which took place shortly after 7 a.m. local time, and reportedly has yet to be caught. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack yet. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped some in Russia from already pointing the finger at Ukraine.
Kyiv’s intelligence services have successfully managed to target numerous officials close to Putin’s war machine on Russian soil since the start of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago. Alekseev’s is the eighth attack on a high-ranking member of the ministry of defence since the beginning of the war, including three military generals who have been assassinated in the Russian capital since 2022. The manner in which they were killed – using planted explosive devices – differs to today’s shooting, however.
Trump has hardly hesitated to publicly chastise and punish Ukraine
Alekseev, 64, is certainly a high-profile target. Since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, he has been responsible for overseeing the activities of private military companies operating in the Russian field of battle. He was thrown into the spotlight in 2023, when, along with General Sergei Surovikin, was tasked with negotiating with the mercenary Wagner Group leader Evgeniy Prigozhin, during his ill-fated coup that June. Alekseev famously recorded a video address to Prigozhin, in which he condemned his march on Moscow as a ‘stab in the back of the country and the president’ and pleaded with the mercenary leader to bring his coup to an end.
Prior to the invasion, Alekseev is believed to have been involved in many of the GRU’s overseas operations. He was placed under American sanctions for his alleged involvement in efforts to intervene in the 2016 presidential election. He has also been under EU sanctions since 2019 for orchestrating the assassination attempt on Sergei and Yulia Skripal with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury the previous year. Despite this, however, he does not appear to have been specifically sanctioned by Britain.
Such an attack on yet another military figure in Moscow will undoubtedly spook Russia’s top brass and raise questions amongst them about how well the Kremlin is able to protect its top players. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has already attempted to distance the regime from the event this morning, declaring to members of the Russian press that ‘it’s not the Kremlin’s responsibility to discuss how to ensure their safety’.
Alekseev’s shooting comes a day after the latest round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi, at which progress is reportedly being made. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused Kyiv of orchestrating the attack to derail the negotiations:
This terrorist attack once again confirmed the Zelenskyy regime’s focus on constant provocations aimed at disrupting the negotiation process, and its willingness to do anything to convince its Western sponsors to keep up with the United States in its quest to derail them from achieving a fair settlement.
It is unlikely, even if they are responsible for the attack, that Ukraine will publicly claim it. However, how Donald Trump reacts to this – and whether he believes Moscow’s accusations – are another matter. Trump has hardly hesitated to publicly chastise and punish Ukraine or its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for imagined misdemeanours in the past. If he, too, believes Kyiv might be out to sabotage the peace talks with Moscow in this way, there will be more trouble for Ukraine ahead.
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