Russia says it has identified three suspects involved in the shooting of high-profile military general Lt Gen Vladimir Alexeyev.
They include the man said to have carried out the attack, who has been named as Ukrainian-born Russian citizen Lyubomir Korba.
Russia’s Investigations Committee (SK) said Korba arrived in the capital, Moscow, in late December “on assignment from Ukrainian intelligence services to commit a terrorist attack”. Kyiv has reportedly denied involvement.
Alexeyev, 64, was taken to hospital after the attack in a residential block of flats in the north-western outskirts of Moscow on Friday. He has since regained consciousness after surgery, according to Russian media reports.
Alexeyev is number two in the main directorate of Russia’s GRU military intelligence and the latest high-ranking military figure to have been targeted in or near Moscow since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said on Sunday that his attacker had fired three shots before fleeing and that Korba travelled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hours after the shooting. He has since been arrested and extradited.
Russian state TV channel Ru-24 aired footage showing security agents escorting Korba off a plane at an unknown location.
“Investigators conducted a thorough inspection at the scene, during which they discovered the murder weapon—a Makarov pistol with a silencer and three rounds of ammunition,” Petrenko added. Forensic tests are being carried out on the gun.
Russian media, quoting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, reported that President Vladimir Putin had thanked UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Saturday for his country’s help in catching Korba.
Quoted by Reuters, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on Friday that Kyiv had nothing to do with the shooting, suggesting that it was an internal Russian affair.
His Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack as a way to disrupt negotiations over how to end the war between the two countries, which began in February 2022.
Alexeyev’s boss, GRU head Adm Igor Kostyukov, has been leading the Russian delegation at recent trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE.
Korba is alleged to have had at least one accomplice. A man named by the SK as Viktor Vasin has been arrested by the authorities in Moscow and charged.
A woman named as Zinaida Serebritskaya, who has since left for Ukraine, is also thought to be involved but Petrenko did not elaborate on how.
Ukraine has claimed some attacks on Russian military figures in the past. Russian intelligence officials claimed they had thwarted an attempted attack on a Russian soldier in St Petersburg at the end of last month.
An Uzbek man was jailed in January for the 2024 killing of another general, Igor Kirillov, in an explosion outside a block of flats in Moscow. Sources in Ukraine’s SBU intelligence said at the time it was behind the attack.
Lt Gen Kirillov had been in charge of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection troops.
In December 2025, another high-ranking officer in the GRU, Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, was killed when an explosive device detonated under a car in Moscow. He was in charge of the armed force’s operational training department, according to Russia’s SK.
By BBC News
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