Vladimir Alekseyev, a general who holds a senior role in the Russian General Staff and deputy head of military intelligence, was shot at an apartment building in Moscow this morning and was rushed to hospital. This was stated by the Russian Investigative Committee, according to which “in a residential building located on Volokolamskoye Avenue in Moscow, an unidentified individual fired several shots” at Alekseyev before fleeing. “The victim was hospitalized,” the investigative committee said, quoted by the Ria Novosti agency.

Vladimir Alekseyev is the first deputy head of the Central Intelligence Directorate (GRU), a department whose head, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, is responsible for the Russian delegation to the trilateral negotiations in Abu Dhabi on Ukraine.
General Alekseyev has held the position of deputy head of the GRU since 2011. Since December 2016, he has been under sanctions from the United States in connection with alleged cyber attacks aimed at influencing the US presidential elections.

In 2019, the deputy head of the GRU was also sanctioned by the European Union, in connection with the poisoning of former Russian spy Serghei Skripal and his daughter Julia in Salisbury, Great Britain. In June 2023, Alekseyev, together with Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, took charge of negotiations with the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, during the mutiny and the ‘march on Moscow’.