Deputy head of Russian military intelligence hospitalised after assassination attempt in Moscow

A high-ranking Russian military intelligence officer has been hospitalised after surviving an assassination attempt at his home in Moscow on Friday morning, Russia’s Investigative Committee has said.

According to the Investigative Committee, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev was shot several times in his apartment block on northwestern Moscow’s Volokolamskoye Highway by an unidentified assailant, who then fled the scene.

Telegram news channel Baza described Alekseyev’s condition as ”serious”, noting that he had lost a significant amount of blood before medics could reach the scene.

A criminal case had been opened for attempted murder and illegal arms trafficking, the Investigative Committee said, adding that investigators were working at the scene examining CCTV footage and interviewing witnesses.

Alekseyev, who was born in Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region, has served as first deputy head of Russia’s GRU foreign military intelligence since 2011. In 2017, he was made a Hero of Russia, the country’s highest honour, for his supervision of military intelligence officers during Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Since 2018, Alekseyev has been under US sanctions for his role in Russia’s interference in the country’s 2016 presidential election. He has also been sanctioned by the UK and EU for his role in the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergey Skripal with the nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018.

In 2023, Alekseyev was instrumental in persuading Wagner Group co-founder Yevgeny Prigozhin to end the mercenary unit’s armed uprising and march on Moscow.

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence has said Alekseyev is responsible for “providing intelligence support for Russian aggression against Ukraine”, including preparing targeting data for missile and drone strikes on civilian targets and attempting to legitimise Russia’s presence in eastern Ukraine by organising an illegal referendum in the Kherson region.