He deputy director of the Russian Military Intelligence Service (GRU)the general Vladimir Alekseyevhospitalized after being shot by an unknown person this Friday in Moscow, reappears under the media spotlight as a key figure due to an unusual feature in this type of position: his role as puente between the Russian apparatus and external structures that have expanded Russia’s reach abroad, with Wagner as an emblematic case. Alekseyev, moreover, is under US sanctions of the European Union (EU). The Twenty-seven punished him for his alleged involvement in the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the United Kingdom in 2016.
The figure of Alekseyev took on public relevance in the context of Wagner: a command able to understand the official gear and, at the same time, manage interlocutors who operate outside the uniform. In the crisis of the failed mutiny of June 2023when the group of mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin took military garrisons in the Russian city of Rostov, appeared in a video calling to stop the rebellion and alluded to years of close cooperation between the GRU and Wagner. The scene establishes his profile: not just an office general, but an operator with access to networks and loyalties that are difficult to fit into an organizational chart.
The relationship with Wagner illustrates how the group was not only an instrument of foreign war, but also a political lever. The group, which was born as a combat force serving Russian interests in scenarios such as Syria and, later, as the decisive arm in Ukraine, it had its own autonomy, opaque financing and its own chain of command. The military, mercenary and propaganda mix allowed the State to expand capabilities without always assuming the formal cost.
However, after that episode, Wagner was a reminder that Instruments designed to project force outside can strain the internal architecture. Alekseyev fits into that hinge: someone situated where operations are coordinated, influence is distributed and ruptures are contained.
Trustworthy man
As deputy director of Russian military intelligence, Alekseyev is no mere bureaucrat: he manages trust, coordinates pieces and manages relationships. He GRUlinked to Staffcombines information gathering, covert operations and support for the planning of the Armed Forces. Its imprint is perceived when the war is also fought in the field of sabotage, disinformation or cyberspace.
According to ‘The Insider’ portal, the general played a relevant role in organizing the initial unsuccessful invasion of Ukraine in 2022, proposed as a lightning operation and that has ended up leading to a long war about to turn four years old. Furthermore, the Ukrainian military accused him this Friday of allowing the “systematic” torture of prisoners of war.
The Russian press has reported that in the attack suffered this Friday, Alekseyev was shot several times in the abdomen, leg and arm at his home in Moscow by a gunman. stranger disguised as a messenger which, according to information, could be a women. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrovhas accused Ukraine of being behind the attack with the aim of torpedo peace negotiations in which its boss, Igor Kostiukov, heads the Russian delegation.
From Russia to Syria
The international press has linked Alekseyev with the management of foreign operations, especially in Syriaand an internal reputation reinforced by decorations such as ““Hero of Russia”. They are references that help measure his weight: he is not a secondary name within military intelligence.
Little public first-hand biographical information is known about Alekseyev. Open sources place him as born in 1961 in Holodky (Vinnytsia region)then part of Soviet Ukraine; Today that town belongs to Ukraine.
View of the apartment building where the deputy head of Russian military intelligence, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, was shot and wounded, in Moscow, Russia, Friday, February 6, 2026. / Pavel Bednyakov / AP
Under sanctions
The sanctions offer a verifiable chronology. USA included it in December 2016 in measures linked to cyberactivity attributed to structures associated with the GRU. The UE sanctioned him in January 2019 within the regime of chemical weaponsassociating it in institutional terms with the Salisbury case and the use of Novichok.
This framing places Alekseyev on the list of senior commanders that the West identifies with high political cost operations. And he adds an essential fact to understand why his name matters: it is not just about hierarchy, but about international attribution.
Attack and signal
Unlike other more media-friendly faces of Russian power, Alekseyev embodies a profile of security officer: little personal exposure, fragmented biographical data and public presence almost always linked to crises or external documents, such as sanctions lists, and in military intelligence it is more important to have access to information, operations and contacts than to go out in public.
However, the shooting places him at a point of maximum exposure. He message What leaves such an attack in Moscow is Of course: when a high command with access to security circles is hit in the capital, a crack opens in the control narrative and in the perception of shielding of the state apparatus. In times of war, that intersection is no longer abstract and it becomes clear who is a potential target.
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