Moscow, Russia. Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU, was rushed to hospital after being shot in Moscow on Friday, investigators said. The incident is the latest in a series of attacks on senior Russian military officials.
Shooting and investigation
The Moscow prosecutor’s office said Alexeyev, who was born in Soviet Ukraine, was shot several times at a residential building in northwest Moscow by an unknown assailant who fled the scene.
Role in GRU and Ukraine talks context
Alexeyev serves as deputy head of the GRU. His superior, Igor Kostyukov, has been leading Russia’s delegation in negotiations with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on security-related aspects of a potential peace deal.
Recent attacks on senior officers
Several senior Russian officers have been assassinated since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Moscow blaming the attacks on Kyiv. In some cases, Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed responsibility.
Since December 2024, three other officials holding the same rank as Alexeyev, lieutenant general, have been killed in or near Moscow. The head of the General Staff’s army training directorate, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, was killed by a bomb placed under his car on December 22.
The attacks have angered Russia’s influential war bloggers, prompting questions about why such senior people have lacked adequate protection. In at least two cases, the targets were killed right outside their homes.
Links to Wagner and 2023 mutiny
Alexeyev was responsible for relations between the Defence Ministry and the Wagner mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, which fought in some of the fiercest battles in the early stages of the war in Ukraine.
Prigozhin was critical of the defence establishment and staged a mutiny in June 2023, when Alexeyev was among the top officials sent to negotiate with him. The mutiny ended, and Prigozhin died in a plane crash two months later.
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