The suspect in the shooting is a Russian officer who has been arrested, Russia said
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Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Sunday that a man suspected of shooting a deputy chief of military intelligence in Moscow was detained in Dubai and then extradited to Russia.
Lt.-Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev was hospitalized after being shot several times on Friday by an assailant in a building northwest of Moscow, said Svetlana Petrenko, spokesperson for the Investigative Committee. The attack follows a series of assassinations of senior military officials that Russia has blamed on Ukraine.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said a Russian citizen, Lyubomir Korba, was detained in Dubai on suspicion of shooting. In a statement on their website, the FSB said it had also identified two people who were “collaborating”, one of whom was detained in Moscow and the other was arrested. “returned to Ukraine.”
When asked about the shooting incident, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that it will be in the hands of the law enforcement to conduct an investigation, but he described it as an act of terrorism by Ukraine aimed at disrupting the peace talks.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv to a request for comment on the Russian allegations.
The shooting follows peace talks in Abu Dhabi
The shooting happened a day after Russia, Ukraine and the US concluded two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, aimed at ending the four-year conflict in Ukraine. The Russian delegation was led by Alekseyev’s boss, military intelligence officer Admiral Igor Kostyukov.
Alekseyev, 64, has served as first deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU, since 2011.
He was awarded the Hero of Russia medal for his role in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria. In June 2023, he was shown on state television talking to army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, when his Wagner Group seized military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don during his brief uprising.
Since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Russian authorities have accused Kyiv of multiple killings of military and public officials in Russia. Ukraine said it was responsible for some of them.
In December, a car bomb killed Lt.-Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Division of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
In April, another senior Russian military officer, Lt.-Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, the deputy head of the main department working in the General Staff, was killed by a bomb placed in his car parked near his building just outside of Moscow. A Russian man who once lived in Ukraine has pleaded guilty to the attack and said he was paid by Ukrainian security forces.
Days after Moskalik’s murder, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had received a report from the head of Ukraine’s intelligence agency about the “liquidation” of senior Russian military officials, adding that “justice is coming” – though he did not name Moskalik.
In December 2024, Lt.-Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukrainian security forces claimed responsibility for the attack.
Lethal Russian airstrike hits Ukraine overnight
A Russian airstrike on a populated area in eastern Ukraine killed one person and wounded two, officials said Sunday, after Zelenskyy said the US had given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach a peace deal.
The attack in the city of Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, caused a fire in a nine-story building, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
Russia also attacked electricity infrastructure in Ukraine’s Poltava region until Sunday, said Serhii Koretskyi, chief executive of Ukraine’s state-run gas company, Naftogaz.
Russia has plugged Ukraine’s power grid, especially in winter, throughout the war. It aims to weaken Ukraine’s will to resist a tactic that officials in Kyiv are calling a “weaponized winter.”
Zelenskyy told reporters on Friday that the US had given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach an agreement to end the war. If the June deadline is not met, the Trump administration is likely to pressure both parties, he said.
“The Americans are proposing that the parties end the war at the beginning of this summer and they will probably put pressure on the parties in accordance with this plan,” the Ukrainian president said. “And they said they want to do everything in June. And they will do everything to end the war. And they want a clear schedule for all the events.”
