Russia officials said the man they identified as the gunman who shot the No. 2 general in the Russian military intelligence agency purportedly told them he was recruited by Ukrainian intelligence.
The February 9 statement by the Federal Security Service -- Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency -- was the first time investigators have formally accused Ukraine of involvement in the shooting of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev.
The agency, known as the FSB, also released more surveillance video footage, including a nearly minute-long clip in which the alleged shooter -- identified as 65-year-old Lyubomir Korba -- was shown confessing to the crime.
In the days following the February 6 shooting of Alekseyev -- who is second in command at the military intelligence agency widely known as the GRU -- authorities have released a daily drip of videos and accusations about the alleged plot.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had earlier alleged Ukrainian involvement, but provided no evidence. Kyiv rejected that accusation.
According to the security agency and investigators, Alekseyev was initially shot twice in the stairwell of a Moscow apartment building by a person disguised as a food delivery courier. As he fended off the attack, he was shot a third time, before the gunman fled.
Officials said he underwent emergency surgery, but was fully expected to recover.
Authorities alleged that Korba, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen, was the gunman. He was reportedly extradited to Moscow from Dubai over the weekend.
In the video, which could be not be independently verified, the man said he was recruited by Ukraine’s SBU security agency in August 2025 in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, and underwent training in Kyiv. He said he was promised $30,000 in cryptocurrency if he killed Alekseyev.
Another man, Viktor Vasin, was identified as an accomplice, and officials accused him of being linked to the late anti-corruption crusader, Aleksei Navalny. A third alleged accomplice reportedly fled to Ukraine.
The FSB also accused Polish intelligence of involvement in recruiting Korba.
Alekseyev is at least the fourth general to have been attacked, or killed, since the start of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.
Investigators have released few details as to the nature of the shooting plot. Officials have blamed Ukraine for past attacks. Lavrov pointedly blamed Kyiv for the Alekseyev shooting, without providing evidence.
As the GRU's deputy commander, Alekseyev has overseen -- or been implicated in -- multiple, often audacious, sabotage or assassination operations around the world.
Among other things, he has been accused of involvement in the near-fatal 2018 Novichok poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain, and the cyberhack of US political parties two years earlier.
He has 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.
