Russia’s Investigative Committee has accused Ukrainian intelligence services of being behind Friday’s assassination attempt on a Russian general in Moscow, and said the alleged perpetrator was arrested in Dubai after fleeing Moscow.
Another suspect, said to be an accomplice, was also detained, the commission said. Another accomplice fled to Ukraine.
The investigative committee named a man in his mid-60s, born in the Ternopil region of Ukraine, as the perpetrator. The newspaper said he had arrived in Russia in December “on the instructions of the Kiev special service.”
Early Friday morning, assailants fired several shots at Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev at a residential building on Moscow’s Volokolamskoye Highway and fled the scene.
TASS reported on Saturday that Alexeev had regained consciousness after surgery. “Doctors are cautiously saying his life is not in danger,” the newspaper added, citing medical sources.
The Investigative Committee announced that a Makarov pistol with a silencer was found at the scene.
Russia’s security services (FSB) said on Sunday that the suspect boarded a flight from Moscow to Dubai shortly after the shooting, where he was detained and returned to Russia.
The Kremlin announced on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin met with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and expressed gratitude for his cooperation in arresting the suspect.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha told Reuters on Friday that Kiev had nothing to do with the attack.
Alexeev, 64, is the first deputy head of the GRU, Russia’s main intelligence agency.
In 2023, Alexeev was sent by the Russian military to negotiate with Evgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private mercenary group, during the Wagner Group rebellion. At the time, he called Prigozhin’s actions both a coup and a “stab in the back of the country and the president.”
He was one of several GRU officials sanctioned by the US in 2016 for widespread malicious cyber activity aimed at undermining the US democratic process.
He was also sanctioned by the European Union in January 2019 following the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, England. The British government said the incident was carried out by GRU operatives with the aim of poisoning a former Russian spy. The EU sanctions say that Alexeev, along with sanctioned Russian military intelligence chief Igor Koshchukov, are “responsible for the possession, transport and use of the poisonous nerve agent Novichok by GRU personnel in Salisbury.”
The attack on Alexeev is the latest to target senior figures in Russia’s military and security services.
In December, a Russian general was killed in a car bombing in Moscow, and officials also blamed Ukraine.
According to the Russian Investigative Committee, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvalov, who headed the military’s operational training department, was killed when a device installed under the chassis of his car exploded.
According to TASS, he previously “carried out the task of organizing and carrying out operations in Syria” when Russian forces were supporting the Assad regime.
Other Russian officials killed in Moscow include Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the operations department of the General Staff, who was the victim of a car bomb attack near Moscow last April.
CNN’s Lauren Kent and Anna Chernova contributed to this article
