Analysis: The curious Russian response to general’s shooting – and what it says about Putin
By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor
From the Skripal poisonings to the invasion of Ukraine to subverting American elections, it is hard to think of a Russian outrage General Alexeyev has not been involved in.
He is now fighting for his life in a Moscow hospital – the victim himself of foul play.
The military intelligence deputy chief had a role in so many of Vladimir Putin’s acts of malice stretching back decades. And he would have had no shortage of enemies.
Yet this high-ranking soldier spy was so badly protected, his would-be killer was able to shoot him several times at close range in the stairwell of his own apartment building.
As in any cheap spy novel, the gunman is reported to have slipped in behind him, entering the building by posing as a food delivery boy.
That is not the only mystery about this astonishing attempted assassination.
The Kremlin’s response to it has been curious too.
“It’s clear,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “that such military leaders and high-ranking specialists are at risk during wartime. It’s not the Kremlin’s job to figure out how to ensure their safety”.
“You’re on your own boys” seemed to be the message, hardly reassuring for some of Russia’s highest-ranking and most decorated commanders.
The lieutenant general is just the latest in a line of top Russians neutralised on home turf.
Officially, Russia is blaming Ukraine, unsurprisingly. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called it a terrorist act designed to “provoke, in turn, the goal of disrupting the negotiation process”.
But in truth there are any number of people who would have wanted Alexeyev dead.
He helped orchestrate the botched attempt to kill Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with the nerve agent Novichok.
He was deeply involved with Russia’s murderous campaign in Syria that targeted hospitals, clinics and aid convoys.
He is alleged to have been involved in Russian efforts to undermine both the 2016 and 2020 US elections.
And when Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group mutinied and marched on Moscow, Alexeyev helped negotiate an end to its rebellion. Prigozhin himself of course would die some time later in a mysterious plane accident.
If Ukrainians were behind the attempt on the general’s life, it will signal a catastrophic failure of security at the very top of Russia’s military intelligence structure.
But it may just as well be the result of an internal power struggle within those elites.
Either way, the shooting bodes ill for the leadership of Putin’s Russia.
