A member of the Russian General Staff Vladimir Alekseev was seriously injured after an assassination attempt was made against him at his home. This is not the first assassination attempt on a high-ranking military official in Russia.
An assassination attempt was made in Moscow against 64-year-old Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev, deputy head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (formerly the GRU). He was attacked in his home - on the 24th floor of a block of flats on Volokolamskoye Shosse.
The unknown perpetrator shot several times, then fled. The authorities have launched an investigation. The general survived and was urgently hospitalized in one of the Moscow hospitals. According to the state television RT, the victim is in serious condition.
The scene of the incident is being examined by investigators and forensic experts. They are reviewing the recordings from the video surveillance cameras, questioning eyewitnesses. According to the website "The Insider", residents of the block complained that the cameras in the entrance were not working.
Alekseev is under US and EU sanctions
In the summer of 2023, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev issued a video address to Yevgeny Prigozhin during his rebellion. It was Alekseev who called on the Wagnerites "not to succumb to provocations". According to media reports, the general personally led the formation of the new private army, designed to replace the "Wagner" group.
Since December 2016, Ukrainian-born Alekseev has been under sanctions imposed by the United States for cyberattacks before the US presidential election. Since 2019, he has also been on the EU sanctions list for the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK.
This is not the first attack of this nature since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine. At the end of December, a car explosion in Moscow killed the head of the Operational Training Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov. In April 2025, the deputy head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, died in the Moscow region. In January, the verdict was handed down in the case of the December 2024 murder of the head of the Russian troops for radiation, chemical and biological protection, General Igor Kirillov.