Russian general Vladimir Alekseyev in critical condition after Moscow shooting

A top Russian military official has been taken to hospital after being shot in Moscow, state media reported.Lt Gen Vladimir Alekseyev was shot several times on the stairwell of his apartment on Friday by an unknown gunman in the north-west of the city and remains in critical condition, according to early reports.Alekseyev is a deputy director of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, a unit in the defence ministry known for organising covert operations abroad, including assassinations, sabotage and espionage.He was one of the top officers providing Vladimir Putin with intelligence for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.He has also been widely described as a key figure overseeing the country’s private military companies and was among the senior officials dispatched to negotiate with Yevgeny Prigozhin during the Wagner Group’s brief mutiny in the summer of 2023.Alekseyev is under sanctions from Washington for his alleged involvement in efforts to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election. The UK also placed sanctions on him over the deadly 2018 novichok nerve agent attack in Salisbury.No party has claimed responsibility for shooting Alekseyev, but suspicion in Moscow is likely to fall on Kyiv. Ukrainian intelligence agencies have targeted dozens of Russian military officers and Russian-installed officials since the start of the war, accusing them of involvement in war crimes.The timing of the shooting is striking. It came a day after Russian and Ukrainian delegations - including Alekseyev’s direct superior, Igor Kostyukov - met in Abu Dhabi, where both sides spoke of apparent progress in the peace talks.Some in Moscow swiftly blamed Ukraine, alleging without evidence that Kyiv was attempting to derail the talks.“An attempt on Alekseyev’s life is the best way to derail these talks, and the only person who stands to benefit in this situation is Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” said the Russian MP Alexei Zhuravlev.He called for those involved to be eliminated, describing Alekseyev as “one of the most authoritative and respected generals in the Russian army”.Previous peace efforts have broken down over Russia’s maximalist territorial demands on Ukraine, with Moscow repeatedly rejecting Kyiv’s calls for an immediate ceasefire.Ukraine has targeted at least three Russian generals in the Moscow region over the past year, though such operations have typically involved explosives.Little is publicly known about the clandestine networks believed to be behind assassinations and attacks on military infrastructure inside Russia and in Russian-controlled territories.Alekseyev’s shooting will be seen as the latest failure of Russia’s security services to protect key military personnel deep inside the country. While details of who carried out the attack and how it was organised remain unclear, Russian military bloggers have criticised apparent security lapses, questioning how a gunman was able to enter the apartment building undetected.