By CNN’s Tim Lister and Kosta Gak
(CNN) — 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 other suspect – described as an accomplice – was also detained, the Committee said. Another alleged accomplice escaped to Ukraine.
The Investigative Committee named the alleged assailant as a man in his mid-60s born in the Ternopil region of Ukraine. He had arrived in Russia in December “on the instructions of the Kyiv special services,” it said.
Early on Friday morning an attacker fired several shots at Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev in a residential building on Volokolamskoye Highway in Moscow and fled the scene.
Alekseyev had regained consciousness after surgery, TASS reported Saturday. “Doctors cautiously say that his life is not in danger,” it added, citing medical sources.
The Investigative Committee said a Makarov pistol with a silencer was discovered at the scene.
The Russian security service – the FSB – said Sunday that immediately after the shooting the suspect boarded a flight from Moscow to Dubai, where he was detained and returned to Russia.
The Kremlin said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and thanked him for assistance on apprehending the suspect.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told Reuters on Friday that Kyiv had nothing to do with the attack.
Alekseyev, 64, is the first deputy head of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU.
In 2023, Alekseyev was sent by the Russian military to negotiate with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private mercenary group, during the Wagner group’s mutiny. At the time, he called Prigozhin’s actions a coup as well as “a stab in the back of the country and the president.”
He was one of several GRU officials sanctioned by the United States in 2016 for wide-ranging malicious cyber activity directed at undermining US democratic processes.
He was also sanctioned by the European Union in January 2019 following a nerve agent attack in Salisbury, England, which the British government said was carried out by GRU agents 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,” along with sanctioned Russian military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.
The attack on Alekseyev is the latest aimed at senior figures in the Russian military and security services.
In December, a Russian general was killed in a car bombing in Moscow, with officials also pointing the finger at Ukraine.
Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, who ran the armed forces operational training department, died after a device installed under the chassis of a car exploded, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
The 56-year-old had previously “carried out the tasks of organizing and conducting an operation in Syria,” when Russian forces were backing the Assad regime, TASS said.
Other senior Russian officers killed in Moscow have included Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational department of the General Staff, who was the victim of a car bomb attack near Moscow in April last year.
CNN’s Lauren Kent and Anna Chernova contributed to this story
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