A senior Russian officer, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, was rushed to the hospital after being shot in Moscow on Friday, officials said.

Alexeyev is deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff at the Defence Ministry.

When mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin staged a short-lived mutiny in June 2023, Alexeyev was one of the top officials who were sent to negotiate with him.

The Moscow prosecutor’s office said Alexeyev had been shot several times at a residential building in northwest Moscow by an unknown assailant who fled the scene.

Several senior Russian officers have been assassinated since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Moscow blaming the attacks on Kyiv.

In some cases, Ukrainian military intelligence has claimed responsibility.

The most recent officer to be killed was the head of the General Staff’s army training directorate, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, who was killed by a bomb under his car on December 22.