Russian law enforcement agencies have detained a suspect and his alleged accomplice in an apparent assassination attempt on the deputy chief of the GRU military intelligence agency, Vladimir Alekseyev, Russian media reported on February 7.
The suspect has already been brought in for questioning, and a court hearing on pretrial detention is expected on February 8, according to Kommersant. A criminal case has been opened on charges of attempted murder and illegal arms trafficking, the newspaper reported.
After interrogation, the suspects will be charged, the newspaper reported, without confirming whether the suspects had been detained. Russia has not officially reported the detention of the suspects.
According to Kommersant, Alekseyev underwent successful surgery and regained consciousness on February 7, but remained under medical supervision. No official statement has been made on his status.
According to the Russian Telegram news channels Mash and Baza, the man who shot Alekseyev is "being transported from Dubai," and that an alleged accomplice has been detained along with him.
There is no information yet on the identity of the suspect or the alleged perpetrators of the attack. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the assassination attempt, which he said -- without citing evidence -- was designed to sabotage peace talks.
The No. 2 officer at the GRU was shot and wounded in Moscow on February 6, in what investigators called an assassination attempt.
Kommersant reported that investigators believe Alekseyev was shot by a person posing as a food delivery courier who had entered his apartment building. The newspaper said Alekseyev, who was on his way to work, was shot twice in the building's stairwell and then a third time as he fended off the attack, after which the shooter fled the scene.
Alekseyev is second in command at the GRU, the Defense Ministry's intelligence agency known for audacious operations ranging from sabotage, assassination, espionage, and cyberattacks.
Alekseyev has been implicated by Britain in the 2018 near-fatal Novichok poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Britain. A British woman died after being inadvertently exposed to the poison.
He's also been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who co-founded Russia's most notorious mercenary company, Wagner Group. Prigozhin died in a plane crash in August 2023, which Western intelligence officials later concluded was an assassination.
The US Treasury Department hit Alekseyev and other GRU officers with financial sanctions for hacking US political parties and other cyberespionage operations.
If confirmed Alekseyev was the target of an assassination attempt, it would be the latest in a series of attacks on top Russian military officials -- many in Moscow.
Suspicion for the attacks has fallen in large part on Ukrainian intelligence agencies, which have pulled off their own audacious sabotage and assassination operations inside of Russia in recent years.
In December, the head of the General Staff's operational training directorate, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, died after a bomb exploded under his car on Moscow's outskirts.
Eight months prior, another lieutenant general, Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy chief in the General Staff’s operation directorate, was killed in a car bombing outside Moscow.
And in 2024, the officer in charge of Russia's nuclear and chemical weapons protection forces, was killed when an electric scooter exploded on the sidewalk outside his Moscow apartment building.
