A RUSSIAN GENERAL has been hospitalised after he was shot several times in an apartment building in Moscow.

An “unidentified individual fired several shots” at Vladimir Alekseyev before fleeing the scene, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes. 

It did not say anything about the suspected perpetrator.

“Investigative actions and operational search measures are being carried out to identify the person or persons involved in committing the aforementioned crime,” Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.

Investigators leave an apartment building where deputy chief of Russian military intelligence Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev was shot and wounded. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Several high-ranking military officials have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Kyiv has claimed responsibility for some of the hits.

A career military officer, Alekseyev is the first deputy chief of the Russian general staff, according to his online biography.

He led intelligence operations during the Russian intervention in Syria to support the now-ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

He was also despatched to negotiate with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin during his attempted mutiny against Russian military top brass in 2023, before he died in a plane crash in August that year. 

Last month, a Russian court sentenced an Uzbek man to life in prison for the 2024 killing of the head of the Russian army’s radiological, chemical and biological defence forces.

The general, Igor Kirillov, was killed when a booby-trapped scooter exploded as he left an apartment block in Moscow, in an attack Kyiv said it had orchestrated.

With reporting from © AFP 2026