Russia’s Investigative Committee has accused Ukrainian intelligence of being behind the assassination attempt on a Russian general 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 mentioned. Another 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 instructions of the Kyiv special services,” it mentioned.
Early on Friday morning an attacker fired a number of photographs at Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev in a residential constructing on Volokolamskoye Highway in Moscow and fled the scene.
Alekseyev had regained consciousness after surgical procedure, TASS reported Saturday. “Doctors cautiously say that his life is not in danger,” it added, citing medical sources.
The Investigative Committee mentioned a Makarov pistol with a silencer was found on the scene.
The Russian safety service – the FSB – mentioned 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.
The Kremlin mentioned Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and thanked him for help on apprehending the suspect.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha instructed Reuters on Friday that Kyiv had nothing to do with the assault.
Alekseyev, 64, is the primary deputy head of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU.
In 2023, Alekseyev was despatched by the Russian army to barter with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founding father of the Wagner personal mercenary group, in the course of the Wagner group’s mutiny. At the time, he known as Prigozhin’s actions a coup in addition to “a stab in the back of the country and the president.”
He was one among a number of GRU officers sanctioned by the United States 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 attack in Salisbury, England, which the British authorities mentioned was carried out by GRU brokers to poison a former Russian spy. The EU sanctions describe Alekseyev as “responsible for the possession, transport and use in Salisbury… of the toxic nerve agent ‘Novichok’ by officers from the GRU,” together with sanctioned Russian army intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.
The assault on Alekseyev is the most recent geared toward senior figures within the Russian army and safety providers.
In December, a Russian general 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 mentioned.
The 56-year-old had beforehand “carried out the tasks of organizing and conducting an operation in Syria,” when Russian forces have been backing the Assad regime, TASS mentioned.
Other senior Russian officers killed in Moscow have included Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the principle operational division of the General Staff, who was the sufferer of a car bomb assault close to Moscow in April final yr.
NCS’s Lauren Kent and Anna Chernova contributed to this story