A senior Russian military intelligence officer and key wartime negotiator, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, has been shot multiple times in a Moscow apartment block in what Russian officials are treating as an attempted assassination. The 64‑year‑old first deputy head of the GRU, who has been under EU and UK sanctions over the 2018 Salisbury nerve‑agent attack and has played a prominent role in negotiations on Ukraine, including talks during the siege of Mariupol and with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin after the 2023 mutiny, was rushed to hospital after the Feb. 6 shooting on Volokolamsk Highway, though his condition has not been officially disclosed. Watch for more