"It's clear that such military leaders and high-ranking specialists are at risk during wartime. It's not the Kremlin's job to figure out how to ensure their safety."

"That’s a matter for the intelligence services."  

"[The intelligence services were investigating the attack and would report any findings to Russian President Vladimir Putin]. We wish the general survival and recovery."      

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman

 

"The attack against Lieutenant General Alekseyev confirmed the Zelensky regime's intention to disrupt the negotiations [taking place in Abu Dhabi between American and Russian negotiators to end the war between Russia and Ukraine]."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov  

Still from video, Sky News  An unknown assailant fired several shots at ​Lieutenant ​General Vladimir ‍Alexeyev in a residential building on the Volokolamskoye Highway.

 

Three senior military officials were assassinated in the past several years in Russia when explosions took place near their homes; Fanil Sarvarov, head of the General Staff's Operational Training Department; Haroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the General Staff's Operational Department; and Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia's nuclear, biological and chemical defence forces...a bomb hidden in an electric scooter exploded outside his apartment building as he walked by it. Now a fourth assassination attempt failed to achieve its goal when it targeted the deputy head of the GRU, Russia's foreign military intelligence agency.

 

Shot and severely wounded on Friday at his Moscow home, he was taken to hospital and survived surgery. "An unidentified individual fired several shots" at Lt.-Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev inside a north-west Moscow residential building, said investigators. The blame for the incident was immediately pointed by the Kremlin at Ukraine.  No evidence was provided, while there was speculation by some Russian commentators that Alekseyev had Russian enemies. 

 

Alekseyev's superior at the GRU, Adm. Igor Kostyukov was present in Abu Dhabi for meetings between Washington and Moscow, engaged in discussions over concluding the Russian war with Ukraine. The Russian delegation consisted of military and intelligence officials, hence the head of the GRU's appearance. According to some Western security officials, reasons exist to question whether Ukraine was behind the Alekseyev shooting.

 

Simply put, targeting him at the very time that his GRU chief Kostyukov was involved in U.S.-led negotiations to end the war might risk derailing the  talks while infuriating the Trump administration. A former senior U.S. intelligence official explained the logic, that while Ukraine's security services "have done these hits in the past it would be pretty crazy of them to do it now".  The very involvement of Kyrylo Budanov, former head of Ukraine's military intelligence directorate, now chief of staff for Zelenskyy, raised the stakes for Kyiv should Budanov's former agency be proven linked to the attempted assassination. "We are not stupid, believe me", a former senior Ukraine security official stated.

 

It was "much more likely", said the former official who had worked closely with Budanov, that the attempt on Alekseyev would be in relation to a "domestic issue", likely the general's part in quelling the 2023 Wagner Group uprising which Alekseyev was directly involved in putting down. He had appeared on video footage meeting with Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin before his death in a plane crash suspected of having been orchestrated by Russia's intelligence services.

 

"Let's be honest, the negotiations are already going without any visible results; there's clearly nothing to disrupt", one Russian Telegram channel called Provisional Governor 2 posted. As a senior GRU official, Alekseyev's tenure included notorious operations abroad including hacking Democratic National Committee computers prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, not to mention GRU operations in Syria.  

 

Police officers walk past a high-rise residential building, the scene of the shooting of Russian Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, in Moscow on Friday.  Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images