Russian general shot and wounded in Moscow, in latest attack on top military leaders
- - Russian general shot and wounded in Moscow, in latest attack on top military leaders
Anna Chernova, Lauren Kent, CNNFebruary 8, 2026 at 12:02 AM
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Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev at an unknown location in a still image from video released on June 14, 2023. - Russian Defence Ministry/Reuters
A Russian general serving as deputy head of Russian military intelligence has regained consciousness after being shot and seriously wounded in Moscow, according to state news agency TASS, citing medical sources.
The assassination attempt was the latest in a series on top military figures in Russia.
An attacker fired several shots at Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev in a residential building on Volokolamskoye Highway in Moscow and fled the scene, a Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson said in a statement.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday the “direct perpetrator of the crime” had been arrested in Dubai, with the assistance of authorities in the United Arab Emirates. The FSB named the man allegedly responsible as Lyubomir Korba, a Russian citizen in his mid-60s.
Two other Russian citizens, listed as accomplices, were also detained, said the FSB. One was found in Moscow and the other “had left for Ukraine.” The search for the “organizers of the crime” was still ongoing, it said.
The committee has opened a criminal case into what it called the attempted murder of a high-ranking defense ministry official.
Alekseyev is now awake after surgery, TASS reported Saturday. “Doctors cautiously say that his life is not in danger,” it added, citing medical sources.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had accused the Ukrainian government of being behind the attempted murder, without citing evidence.
The FSB said on Sunday that the alleged perpetrator had arrived in Russia in December and had been instructed to carry out the attack by Ukrainian special services.
Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the shooting.
Alekseyev, 64, is the first deputy head of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU. He was one of several GRU officials sanctioned by the United States in 2016 for wide-ranging malicious cyber activity directed at undermining US democratic processes.
He was also sanctioned by the European Union in January 2019 following a nerve agent attack in Salisbury, England, which the British government said was carried out by GRU agents to poison a former Russian spy. The EU sanctions describe Alekseyev as “responsible for the possession, transport and use in Salisbury… of the toxic nerve agent ‘Novichok’ by officers from the GRU,” along with sanctioned Russian military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.
Alexseyev has had significant involvement in the war in Ukraine, serving as one of Russia’s negotiators in the secret talks with a member of the Ukrainian parliament to end Russia’s 2022 siege of the strategic city of Mariupol, Ukraine.
Police officers walk past a high-rise residential building, the scene of the shooting of Russian Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, in Moscow on Friday. - Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
A Ukrainian intelligence report on Alexseyev claims he has been responsible for “the organization of the preparation of initial data for launching missile and air strikes on Ukrainian territory,” including on civilian targets, as well as being responsible for the illegal referenda in the occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukraine has also accused him of war crimes in Syria.
In 2023, Alekseyev was sent by the Russian military to negotiate with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private mercenary group, during the Wagner group’s mutiny. At the time, he called Prigozhin’s actions a coup as well as “a stab in the back of the country and the president.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a Friday press briefing that the intelligence services were investigating the attack and would report any findings to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added: “We wish the general survival and recovery.”
“It is clear that such military leaders and highly qualified specialists are at risk during a war,” Peskov said when asked about the security of military officials’ residences. “That’s a matter for the intelligence services.”
A police car is parked outside the residential building where the shooting took place in Moscow early on Friday morning. - Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters
A neighbor of Alekseyev told Reuters that she heard several shots around 6:30 a.m. local time Friday. The woman, who only gave her first name as Alexandra, said she “woke up because of shots” and rushed outside the residential building alongside other neighbors. Another resident had already called police, who arrived by 7 a.m., she said.
Several prominent Russians have been killed by explosive devices or shot dead in Moscow in attacks blamed on the Ukrainian security services since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Latest peace talks ‘constructive’
Friday’s shooting in Moscow comes one day after Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators met for trilateral talks in the United Arab Emirates, where the Russian delegation was led by their military intelligence chief Kostyukov.
The Kremlin on Friday described the trilateral talks as “both constructive and challenging.”
Ukraine’s negotiation team also said the talks were “truly constructive” in a comment to news agency RBC-Ukraine, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said they’d “agreed that the next meeting will be held in the near future.”
But beyond a prisoner swap that took place on Thursday, which saw 314 POWs exchanged, no major breakthroughs were announced by either side.
Meanwhile on Friday, the Pentagon announced that the US State Department approved a potential $185 million sale of spare parts for US-provided vehicles and weapon systems to Ukraine.
Family members hold photos of their captured relatives as Ukrainian prisoners of war released from Russian captivity arrive home following a prisoner exchange between the two sides this week. - Maksym Kishka/Frontliner/Getty Images
This is story has been with developments.
CNN’s Victoria Butenko and Svitlana Vlasova contributed to this report.
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