Senior Russian officer shot in Moscow in apparent assassination attempt

An unidentified individual has shot Lieutenant General Alekseyev in the Russian capital before fleeing the scene, authorities say.

An unknown assailant carried out a gun attack on Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, deputy chief of Russian military intelligence, in a residential building, Svetlana Petrenko, spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee (ICR), said on Friday.

Alekseyev is deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff at the Ministry of Defence.

Petrenko told reporters that a criminal investigation has been opened for attempted murder and illegal trafficking in firearms regarding the incident, according to the Interfax news agency.

She said the shooting attack took place in a building on Volokolamsk Highway in Moscow, and the suspect fled the scene.

“The victim was hospitalised in one of the city hospitals,” Petrenko said, adding that investigators and forensic experts are currently working at the scene of the incident, reviewing security camera footage and questioning witnesses.

The Kommersant daily, quoting law enforcement sources, said Alekseyev’s attacker had been waiting when he left his flat to go to work and that the general had sustained gunshot wounds to an arm, a leg and his chest during a struggle.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Kyiv, without providing any evidence, of being behind the assassination attempt, claiming it was designed to sabotage the peace talks on the war in Ukraine.

There has been no comment from Ukraine on the shooting.

The Kremlin said it hoped Alekseyev, who was born in Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, would survive and recover. Putin has been briefed on the shooting, and Russia’s intelligence services are investigating, it said.

“It is clear that military commanders and high-level specialists are at risk during wartime,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“But it is not the Kremlin that should be deciding how to ensure their safety. This is a matter for the special services.”

Alekseyev was one of the officials sent to negotiate with the late leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a rebellion against Moscow in 2023 and was later killed in a plane crash, which many observers blamed on President Vladimir Putin.

A series of assassinations

Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow, said there has been a surge of assassinations against Russian high-ranking military officials in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine.

“Almost in all those cases, the Ukrainian intelligence services were said to be behind all these assassinations or assassination attempts,” she said.

Since the start of the war in 2022, Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed responsibility for assassinating several senior Russian officers, some of whom have appeared on a public list of Ukraine’s enemies.

The most recent officer to be killed was the head of the General Staff’s army training directorate, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, who was killed by a bomb under his car on December 22.

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.

Russia Hits Ukraine Power Grid With ‘Massive Attack’

A “massive attack” by Russian forces on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has caused power outages across the country, the state grid operator said on Saturday.

Russia has pressed on with its invasion of Ukraine in recent days despite the two countries holding US-brokered talks to end the nearly four-year-long war.

Ukrainian officials have accused Moscow of deliberately targeting energy infrastructure, causing outages that have left hundreds of thousands of people without lighting or heating in temperatures well below zero.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Kyiv had requested emergency assistance from Poland after Russia hit the Burshtynska and Dobrotvirska power plants in western Ukraine.

“Russia is carrying out another massive attack on the Ukrainian power grid facilities,” grid operator Ukrenergo said on Saturday.

“Due to the damage caused by the enemy, emergency outages have been applied in most regions,” it said in a statement on Telegram.

“Currently, the attack is still ongoing. Restoration work will begin as soon as the security situation allows.”

Ukraine and Russia have held two rounds of US-mediated negotiations in Abu Dhabi since January.

Kyiv and Moscow have agreed to a major prisoner swap but have made no breakthrough on the issue of territory, a key sticking point in negotiations.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of orchestrating the shooting of a top military intelligence general in the Russian capital on Friday, leaving him wounded. Kyiv has not commented.

https://thedefensepost.com/2026/02/07/russia-attack-ukraine-power-grid/

Source :

Al Jazeera