Sawt Falasteen - Russia says Kyiv behind Moscow shooting of army general

There was no comment from Kyiv, which has claimed responsibility for some of the several high-ranking military officials that have been killed since Moscow launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022.

Russian investigators said Vladimir Alekseyev -- the deputy head of Moscow's GRU military intelligence, sanctioned in the West for his alleged role in cyberattacks and charges that he organised a nerve agent attack on a Russian defector in Britain -- was shot by an "unidentified individual".

It said the suspect fled the scene and the general was admitted to hospital.

In televised comments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the "terrorist act", accusing Kyiv of trying to "disrupt the negotiation process" searching for an end to the four-year war.

The Kremlin said its secret services were investigating the incident and keeping President Vladimir Putin informed.

"The special services are doing their job," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"We wish the general a speedy recovery. We hope that will be the case," he added.

In a northwestern Moscow suburb, a forensic truck was parked outside an apartment block and investigators had cordoned off access, AFP reporters saw.

- Skripal connection -

A career military officer, Alekseyev has been the first deputy chief of the GRU since 2011.

He has been under Western sanctions over alleged cyberattacks and for what the West said was his role in organising the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018.

That attempted assassination left one member of the British public dead and severely strained ties between London and Moscow.

Alekseyev also led intelligence operations during the Russian intervention in Syria on behalf of now-ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

And amid the Ukraine war he was despatched to negotiate with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin during his attempted mutiny against Russian military top brass in 2023.

At the time Alekseyev was filmed sitting with Prigozhin in a Russian military compound taken over by Wagner, trying to convince the mercenary chief to call off his troops.

Prigozhin died months after the aborted rebellion when his plane exploded mid-air.

Russia's Investigative Committee said Friday Alekseyev had been hit by "several shots". There was no update on his condition other than that he had been hospitalised.

"Investigative actions and operational search measures are being carried out to identify the person or persons involved in committing the aforementioned crime," Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement.

Several senior military figures have been targeted and killed on Russian soil since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

Last month a Russian court sentenced an Uzbek man to life in prison for the 2024 killing of the head of the Russian army's radiological, chemical and biological defence forces.

The general, Igor Kirillov, was killed when a booby-trapped scooter exploded as he left an apartment block in Moscow, in an attack Kyiv said it had orchestrated.

Q.Jaber--SF-PST