A top Russian military general, accused of being involved in the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, was shot outside his Moscow apartment in an alleged assassination attempt.
An unidentified gunman fired several shots at Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence arm, before fleeing the scene, the investigators said.
It is the latest in a series of assassination attempts Russia has blamed on Ukraine.
Mr Alexeyev, 64, has previously been recognised by president Vladimir Putin with a Hero of Russia award. His position meant he would have been closely involved in prosecuting Russia's war in Ukraine.
Mr Alexeyev is believed to have been behind the deadly Salisbury poisonings that caused the tragic death of mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, according to reports. The EU imposed sanctions on him over the poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018.
A UK public inquiry concluded in December that Mr Putin must have ordered the novichok nerve agent attack on the Russian double agent in a "reckless" display of power that led to the death of an innocent woman.
Skripal was found along with his daughter Yulia slumped unconscious, on a public bench in the southern English city of Salisbury in March 2018 after novichok was applied to the front door handle of his nearby home. About four months later, Sturgess died from exposure to the poison after her partner found a counterfeit perfume bottle which Russian spies had used to smuggle the military-grade nerve agent into the country, the inquiry said.
Born in Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Mr Alexeyev was placed under US sanctions over Russian cyber interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the assassination attempt, which he said – without providing evidence – was designed to sabotage peace talks.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Since the start of the war in 2022, Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed responsibility for assassinating several senior Russian officers, some of whom have appeared on a public list of Ukraine's enemies.
The Kommersant daily, quoting law enforcement sources, said Mr Alexeyev's attacker had been waiting when he left his apartment to go to work and that Mr Alexeyev had sustained gunshot wounds to an arm, a leg and his chest during a struggle.
The Kremlin said it hoped Mr Alexeyev would survive and recover. Mr Putin has been briefed on the shooting and Russia's intelligence services are investigating, it said.
"It is clear that military commanders and high-level specialists are at risk during wartime," said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
"But it is not the Kremlin that should be deciding how to ensure their safety. This is a matter for the special services."
Security questions
Some pro-Kremlin Russian journalists, war bloggers and members of the public asked why such important figures were not better protected.
"How can this happen? Or is it only in films that we see that such people should have security guards? This is not the first time this has happened," a woman called Ludmila wrote beneath a state media article on the shooting.
A neighbour of Mr Alexeyev, who gave her name as Alessandra, said CCTV in the apartment building had been working well, after unconfirmed reports that the gunman had gained access by posing as a food delivery courier.
Mr Alexeyev's boss, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, has been leading Russia's delegation in negotiations with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on security-related aspects of a potential peace deal.
The latest round of talks concluded on Thursday. The Kremlin said they were constructive and that talks would continue.
Since December 2024, three other officials of the same rank as Mr Alexeyev have been killed in or near Moscow. The head of the General Staff's army training directorate was killed by a bomb placed under his car on 22 December last year.
Mr 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. Mr Alexeyev was one of the officials sent to negotiate with him. The mutiny fizzled out and Prigozhin died in a plane crash two months later.
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