Russian General Is Shot in Moscow

The attack bore the hallmark of several assassination attempts on top military officers in the Russian capital.A still image from a video released by the Russian Ministry of Defense showing Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev in 2023.Credit...Russian Defense Ministry, via ReutersFeb. 6, 2026Updated 4:14 a.m. ETA top Russian general involved in intelligence gathering for the Ukraine war was shot in Moscow on Friday and the episode was being investigated as an attempted murder, the authorities said.The general, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, deputy head of the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence agency, was hospitalized after an attacker shot him in the back inside a building in the north of Moscow, the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement on Friday morning.The general’s condition was not immediately clear. The investigators said that the attacker had managed to escape.The shooting happened the morning after the general’s boss, the head of the G.R.U., Igor Kostyukov, led the Russian delegation in talks with Ukraine in the United Arab Emirates. The talks did not seem to have yielded any results, but both parties said that they would return to the negotiating table at a future date.General Alekseyev was one of the top Russian military officers providing the Kremlin with intelligence for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He was also a negotiator with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, head of the Russian private military contractor Wagner, when Mr. Prigozhin mounted a short-lived mutiny in 2023.The shooting on Friday continues a string of attacks and assassinations of top Russian military officers in Moscow.Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, one of the most prominent Russian generals to have been targeted, was killed in December 2024 when an explosive planted in a scooter detonated as he walked out of his home in Moscow.In spring last year, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik of the Russian Army’s General Staff was killed in a car explosion outside his home. In December, Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, who served as head of the General Staff’s army operational training directorate, was killed in Moscow after a bomb placed under his car exploded.Ukrainian officials, who claimed responsibility for some of the previous attacks, did not immediately comment on the attack on General Alekseyev.SKIP