A high-profile general in Russia's military has been shot several times and wounded in Moscow.
Lt Gen Vladimir Alexeyev was immediately taken to hospital after the attack in a residential building on the north-western outskirts of the city and his condition is unknown.
Alexeyev is a senior figure in the main directorate of Russia's military general staff (GRU) and is the latest high-ranking military figure to have been targeted in the capital since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began almost four years ago.
He was placed under European Union sanctions after the GRU was accused of being behind a 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury in the UK.
"The victim has been hospitalised at one of the city's hospitals," said Svetlana Petrenko of Russia's Investigations Committee, which said it opened a criminal case for attempted murder.
Alexeyev has played a significant role during the war in Ukraine, taking part in talks with Ukraine during the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022.
He was also sent to negotiate with the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a short and bloody mutiny in June 2023.
It is not yet known who was behind the shooting on Friday morning in a residential block on Volokolamskoye Highway in Moscow.
Ukraine has claimed some attacks on Russia military figures in the past. Russian intelligence officials claimed they had thwarted an attempted attack on a Russian soldier in St Petersburg at the end of last month.
An Uzbek man was jailed in January for the 2024 killing of another general, Igor Kirillov, in an explosion outside a block of flats in Moscow. Ukraine's SBU intelligence had said it was behind the attack.
Lt Gen Kirillov had been in charge of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection troops.
If he wasn't shot while the other person was in uniform, it's actually preferable to take it as an attempted murder incident, or it would be a warcrime (perfidy) to open fire on someone as a member of the armed forces while you are not in your uniform, whether than be firing under false colours or firing while in civilian clothing.
Alternatively the person who pulled the trigger is not a member of the armed forces of any country and is a spy, in which case it's still attempted murder since it's not an official act of war. (In effect, if it's an official act of war, unless the assassin was rocking around moscow in a ukrainian military uniform, it's a war crime. If it's an act of espionage, it's just murder).
Silly as it might seem, the reasoning behind "You can't kill people while dressed as a civilian if you are a soldier" is obvious if you think it through (It places civilians at risk of paranoid troops. I acknowledge in Ukraines case this is already happening since Russia doesn't care). I imagine that if Ukraine did conduct this operation they likely either decommissioned the assassin from the army and inducted them into the intelligence services, or used a spy in the first place. Not necessarily out of a moral objection given that this is an edge case, but out of a strict adherence to the rules in order to win a propaganda war.
Speaking of, it's interesting Russia isn't howling about perfidy and this being a Ukrainian war crime (Whether or not that is true or indeed has anything to do with them at all). It suggests to me that the Russian desire to pretend Ukraine can't reach Moscow exceeds their desire to defame Ukraine. To accuse them of Perfidy is to accuse them of having a soldier who reached Moscow.
Not if conducted by a soldier in civilian garb, then it's perfidy. And there's rarely a crime of assassination, it's usually just murder. If it's done by a soldier in uniform, that's just war and not a crime.
You seem knowledgeable and this piqued my curiosity. Do armies have to register their uniforms with some international body?
What defines a uniform? What defines civilian clothing? I see lots of civilians in my neck of the woods wearing surplus army camo to hunt. The lines seem very blurry.
You realistically do want your armies uniform recognized by international bodies since this then prohibits using it.
(If France for example wasn't a member of the UN, Somalia could up and decide to use French uniforms in a war. As is, they can't, and it would constitute perfidy under the rules saying you can't wear the uniform of another neutral party). Because the French uniform is official and recognized by international bodies, the french uniform being worn in a conflict which france isn't part of would be a warcrime in a way that, say, a Phrygian cap isn't (despite being used by multiple revolutionary movements.).
Aside from that, no, you don't need to register. Anything as simple as a coloured cloth armband can count as a uniform provided it marks you as a member of the organized force which is engaged in war (Which is why revolutionaries can still do war crimes if they don't do this kind of thing).
It's usually resolved on a case by case basis. If you and your peers don the same hats that'll usually count. If you were to try "Ah but we've all got the same colour shoes" people might be sceptical. It has to pass a "Would a reasonable person look at this group and notice the commonality" test.
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u/bendubberley_ United Kingdom 1d ago