Russia’s Investigative Committee has accused Ukrainian intelligence of being behind the assassination try on a Russian normal in Moscow on Friday – and says the alleged perpetrator was arrested in Dubai after fleeing Moscow.
One different suspect – described as an confederate – was additionally detained, the Committee stated. One other alleged confederate escaped to Ukraine.
The Investigative Committee named the alleged assailant as a person in his mid-60s born within the Ternopil area of Ukraine. He had arrived in Russia in December “on the directions of the Kyiv particular companies,” it stated.
Early on Friday morning an attacker fired a number of photographs at Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev in a residential constructing on Volokolamskoye Freeway in Moscow and fled the scene.
Alekseyev had regained consciousness after surgical procedure, TASS reported Saturday. “Medical doctors cautiously say that his life just isn’t at risk,” it added, citing medical sources.
The Investigative Committee stated a Makarov pistol with a silencer was found on the scene.
The Russian safety service – the FSB – stated Sunday that instantly after the taking pictures the suspect boarded a flight from Moscow to Dubai, the place he was detained and returned to Russia.
Ukrainian International Minister Andrii Sybiha informed Reuters on Friday that Kyiv had nothing to do with the assault.
Alekseyev, 64, is the primary deputy head of Russia’s Predominant Intelligence Directorate, the GRU.
In 2023, Alekseyev was despatched by the Russian navy to barter with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founding father of the Wagner personal mercenary group, throughout the Wagner group’s mutiny. On the time, he known as Prigozhin’s actions a coup in addition to “a stab at the back of the nation and the president.”
He was one among a number of GRU officers sanctioned by america in 2016 for wide-ranging malicious cyber exercise directed at undermining US democratic processes.
He was additionally sanctioned by the European Union in January 2019 following a nerve agent assault in Salisbury, England, which the British authorities stated was carried out by GRU brokers to poison a former Russian spy. The EU sanctions describe Alekseyev as “chargeable for the possession, transport and use in Salisbury… of the poisonous nerve agent ‘Novichok’ by officers from the GRU,” together with sanctioned Russian navy intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.
The assault on Alekseyev is the most recent aimed toward senior figures within the Russian navy and safety companies.
In December, a Russian normal was killed in a automobile bombing in Moscow, with officers additionally pointing the finger at Ukraine.
Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, who ran the armed forces operational coaching division, died after a tool put in underneath the chassis of a automobile exploded, Russia’s Investigative Committee stated.
The 56-year-old had beforehand “carried out the duties of organizing and conducting an operation in Syria,” when Russian forces have been backing the Assad regime, TASS stated.
Different senior Russian officers killed in Moscow have included Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the primary operational division of the Normal Workers, who was the sufferer of a automobile bomb assault close to Moscow in April final yr.
