Russian General's Shooting In Moscow May Be Kremlin Peace Sabotage Attempt

The Russian general who was shot in Moscow may have been the victim of an attempt by the Kremlin to sabotage peace talks by blaming the shooting on Ukraine. It may also have been driven by internal Russian military competition since the leader of the Russian peace delegation was the wounded general's boss. 

The Ukrainian head of their peace talk delegation is the former head of that country's military intelligence and he has already been quoted as saying, "believe me, we are not that stupid," since blaming the Ukrainians would be a clumsy Kremlin attempt to anger President Trump. Putin is growing desperate to end the war closer to his terms as his army's performance has collapsed so far in the new year as his economy is faltering so creating a crisis and blaming it on Ukraine would not be outside the realm of possibility for the former KGB agent turned dictator. JL

Nataliya Vasilyeva reports in the New York Times:

A top Russian general in intelligence gathering for the Ukraine war was shot in Moscow today, the latest in a string of attacks on military leaders inside Russia. General Vladimir Alekseyev was one of the Russian officers providing intelligence for the 2022 invasion. He has been targeted with American sanctions twice: first, for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and later, for his role in the Novichok nerve agent attack against Sergei Skripal a Russian former spy, in Britain in 2018. The shooting happened as the general’s boss led the Russian delegation in talks with Ukraine in the UAE. Russia’s foreign minister accused Ukraine of attempting to kill Mr. Alekseyev in order to “disrupt the negotiation process.” The the attack on a GRU general so near to peace talks "cannot be a coincidence."

A top Russian general involved in intelligence gathering for the Ukraine war was shot in Moscow on Friday, the authorities said, in the latest in a string of high-profile attacks on military leaders inside Russia.

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 an apartment building in the north of Moscow, the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement on Friday morning. Footage by Russian state television from the scene showed investigators scouring the gated snow-covered yard of what appears to be a Moscow apartment building.

The general’s condition was not immediately clear. The investigators said that the attacker had managed to escape.

General Alekseyev, who was born in Ukraine, was one of the top Russian military officers providing the Kremlin with intelligence for the 2022 invasion. He also acted as a negotiator with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the head of the Russian private military contractor Wagner, when Mr. Prigozhin mounted a short-lived mutiny in 2023. General Alekseyev had also been targeted with American sanctions twice: first, for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and later, for his alleged role in the Novichok nerve agent attack against Sergei V. Skripal, a Russian former spy, in Britain in 2018. After Mr. Prigozhin’s death, General Alekseyev traveled with another Russian general to Africa to take over Wagner’s operations in several countries there.

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.

The shooting on Friday continues a string of attacks and assassinations of top Russian military officers in Moscow. Ukrainian officials, who claimed responsibility for some of the previous attacks, did not immediately respond to requests for comment about General Alekseyev.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, accused Ukraine of attempting to kill Mr. Alekseyev in order to “disrupt the negotiation process.” Mr. Lavrov did not provide any evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the attack.

Moscow’s demands for Ukrainian territory have been one of the major hurdles in the peace talks, analysts say. Russia believes it is winning on the battlefield and feels it doesn’t need to make any concessions, analysts say, despite big troop losses and slow gain. Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political scientist, said in a social media post on Friday that that the attack on a GRU general so near to peace talks "cannot be a coincidence."

Some war supporters in Russia, like Anastasia Kashevarova, former assistant to the speaker of Parliament in Moscow, accused the Russian authorities of “criminal negligence” for allowing a top general to walk around without a security detail while “the enemy is eliminating Russian generals with such an ease.”

Dmitri S. Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, acknowledged that top Russian officers were “definitely under threat” while the war in Ukraine continued.

When asked whether the Kremlin needed to move top military brass to safer locations, Mr. Peskov said that was up to the security services, not the Kremlin.

Previous attacks in Moscow have killed prominent Russian generals, often in the morning hours when the officers were heading out to work. Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, one of the best-known 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 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 after a bomb placed under his car exploded.