Moscow targets Ukrainian Intelligence for assassination attempt on Russia’s deputy director of Military Intelligence

The Russian authorities have assured this Monday that those detained for their alleged role in the attempted assassination last week of the deputy director of Moscow Military Intelligence, General Vladimir Alekseyev, have confessed that they acted on orders from the Ukrainian Intelligence services.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) has indicated in a statement that the detainees are Liubomir Korba, a Russian citizen born in Ukraine and accused of being responsible for the shooting of Alekseyev, and Vikro Vasin, also Russian and “accomplice” of the former, before highlighting that both “admitted their guilt” in the attempted murder.

“Korba was recruited in August 2025 in Ternopil by an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU),” he said in a statement, in which he assured that the man received “training” in kyiv and traveled to Russia in August 2025 after stopping in Moldova and Georgia.

Likewise, he has highlighted that his son Lubos Korba, a “Polish citizen” and resident in Katowice, Poland, “was involved in the recruitment of Korba with the assistance of the Polish Intelligence services”, without Warsaw having commented for now on the accusations made from Moscow.

The FSB has noted that the suspect “carried out surveillance against high-level personnel of the Russian Armed Forces in the Moscow region in exchange for cryptocurrency rewards,” after which he obtained a pistol with a silencer and ammunition “planted by the Ukrainian Intelligence services” and “an electronic key to the main door of the building where Alekseyev lives.”

The key would have been “secretly given” by a woman identified as Zinaida Serebritskaya, who “traveled to Ukraine and had a rented apartment in the building where the attack took place,” which Korba accessed on the day of the assassination attempt, when he fired four shots at Alekeyev as he was leaving the elevator.

“After committing the crime, he threw away his gun and his backpack, changed his coat and flew to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he was detained by security forces at the request of Russia,” said the FSB, which has assured that the SBU promised Korba the payment of 30,000 dollars (about 25,300 euros) “if the assassination attempt against Alekseyev was successful.”

ROLE OF AN “ACCOMPLICE” OF THE ATTACKER

On the other hand, he has indicated that Vasin “rented an apartment for Korba to serve as a safe house during the preparations for the crime and provided him with transportation passes.” “He participated in the crime for terrorist reasons,” he stated, while maintaining that the man “supports” the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by the late Russian opponent Alexei Navalny.

The FSB, which recalled that this non-governmental organization is considered “terrorist” by Moscow, has pointed out that Vasin was “registered” on websites linked to the group and “published messages on social networks against the amendments to the Russian Constitution and in support of Sergei Udaltsov, leader of the Left Front, convicted of extremist activities.”

Udaltsov was sentenced in December 2025 to six years in prison for a crime of justifying terrorism. Considered a figure critical of the president, Vladimir Putin, and sentenced to four and a half years in prison in 2014 for organizing riots, he had nevertheless expressed his support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and backed the annexation of Crimea and the Ukrainian region of Donbas.

For his part, Alekseyev underwent surgery and is stabilized in the hospital, where he regained consciousness last Saturday. Since 2011, the general was the deputy director of the Main Office of the High General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the Military Intelligence service, known by the acronym GRU.

The general has been under sanctions from the United States and the European Union (EU) since 2016 and 2019, respectively. The European bloc sanctioned him for his alleged responsibility in the 2018 nerve agent poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury.