A Russian general has been rushed to intensive care following a suspected assassination attempt in Moscow on Friday morning.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, a high-profile general in Vladimir Putin’s military, was shot multiple times in a residential building by an unidentified assailant who then fled the scene.
Local reports say Alexeyev is in intensive care, but details regarding his condition remain unknown.
Alexeyev is the deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff at the Defence Ministry, and has been a high-profile military figure in Vladimir Putin’s ranks tied to various international incidents involving Russian intelligence.
He is believed to be among senior Russian figures who oversaw the Salisbury Novichok poisonings, a failed assassination attempt on Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018.
Reports also say that the high-ranking official was also one of the key negotiators sent to speak with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin after he staged a mutiny. Prigozhin was killed two months after the negotiations when the plane he was travelling on crashed.
Previously, Alexeyev was also involved in gathering intelligence during Russia’s intervention in Syria, where they supported the former dictator Bashar al-Assad.
It’s unclear at this point who orchestrated the assassination attempt,
Following today’s shooting, Russian officials confirmed that police are searching for a shooter in north-west Moscow after they fled the scene, but didn’t provide any further details.
A spokesperson said: “Investigative actions and operational search measures are being carried out to identify the person or persons involved in committing the aforementioned crime.”
The shooting follows a number of other high profile assassinations in Russia among the country’s military elite.
Less than two months ago, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, the head of the General Staff's army training, was killed when a bomb was placed under his car.
Ukrainian officials have claimed responsibility for several attacks inside Russia and on its military personnel, as the conflict rages on across the region.
A year earlier, Putin made a rare admission of failure, after security failed to spot a bomb planted on a scooter, which killed Igor Kirillov who was head of the Russian military’s chemical weapons unit.
“It means we need to improve this work. We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen,” he said at the time.
This month will mark four years since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
