Ukraine has just humiliated Putin. He has a plan for revenge

 Vladimir Putin has been humiliated by the attempted assassination of one of his senior generals, experts believe, but the Russian President may attempt to turn the attack to his advantage in peace negotiations.

Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, was taken to hospital in Moscow after he was shot several times in his apartment building

He was seriously wounded, but has now regained consciousness, following a shooting that was widely believed to have been a Ukrainian operation.

The attack comes after a series of assassinations of top military figures in Russia, which have been blamed on Ukraine’s security services.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday that the “perpetrator of the crime” had been arrested in Dubai, with the assistance of authorities in the United Arab Emirates and had been handed over to Russian authorities.

It blamed Ukraine for the assassination attempt, saying the suspect, a Russian man named Lyubomir Korba, in his mid-60s, arrived in Russia in December “on the instructions of the Kyiv special services”.

Ukraine has not commented on the allegations.

Dr Mark Galeotti, a lecturer specialising in Russian crime and security affairs and a columnist for The i Paper, said that the attack was most likely to have been orchestrated by Ukraine, and that while it would not affect the war on the battlefield, it was a humiliating blow for the Russian President.

“There is no question that this is an embarrassment – another officer is down who is involved in intelligence,” said Galeotti. “I do think he [Putin] will feel this personally.”

The historian and author of We Need To Talk About Putin added that attacking major military figures offered a morale boost for Ukraine. “There may be the sense that they are doing the right thing. They are going to continue this campaign; there is no question. Morale is important in war.”

Mark Cancian, a retired US colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that this was a “common” tactic for Kyiv.

“Ukraine has been able to assassinate several senior Russian officials and prominent supporters of the war,” he said.

“One general can always be replaced,” Cancian added, but he stressed that, “Cumulatively, the assassinations put Russian leadership on edge and bring the cost of the war home.”

He pointed out that Russia has not been able to reciprocate with successful assassinations of Ukrainian leaders since the conflict began.

Cancian believes this is due to Ukraine having a “tighter security system” than Moscow, or because “many Ukrainians speak Russian, but few Russians speak Ukrainian”.

Russia seeks edge in peace negotiations

Galeotti suggested that Russia might try to use the assassination attempt to score “brownie points” with the US in peace negotiations, portraying Kyiv as aggressive. “They might say, look at what the Ukrainians are doing but we are the bigger people.”

Sources told Reuters on Friday that the US and Donald Trump were pushing for a draft peace deal between Ukraine and Russia to be agreed in March and a referendum on it to be held in Ukraine alongside elections in May.

Retired US Air Force colonel Cedric Leighton told The i Paper that the “timeline set by Trump is certainly ambitious”.

“It’s highly likely that a deal will not be reached by either March or June,” Leighton said. “Even if a deal is reached, operations like these are likely to continue because neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians will give up their shadow war capabilities.”

He noted that both Ukraine and Russia have “unconventional warfare capabilities, ranging from cyber attacks to targeted assassinations. If operations like these increase in scope, they could make negotiations between the two countries more difficult.”

He added that he was “certain Ukraine will continue to use targeted assassinations in an effort to seriously damage the Russian war effort”.

“In 2025, two assassinations occurred,” he continued. “Both victims were Lt Generals who held critical positions in Russia’s military hierarchy. It appears that Ukraine will try to become even more deliberate in its targeting of senior Russian military officials.

“Coupled with other unconventional attacks, like the massive drone attack on military airfields across Russia known as ‘Operation Spider Web’, the Ukrainians will be able to use targeted assassinations as part of their arsenal against the Russians. The frequency of such attacks will depend in large measure on whether negotiations with Russia reach a point that is acceptable to Ukraine.”

Leighton said it was “quite worrying for Putin – and the Russian security apparatus – that Alexeyev could be shot in the stairwell of his own apartment building, assuming that this assassination attempt was not orchestrated by the Kremlin itself”.

What is the goal of assassination attempts in Russia?

Galeotti said that removing Alexseyev would not offer a material advantage to Ukraine. “He was a big cog in a very big machine – but he wouldn’t be carrying out operations himself,” the Russia expert said.

“If you take out the head of MI5, it is not like spying in Britain is going to stop.”

Galeotti believes the people behind the assassinations could be Russian civilians who oppose Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, or Ukrainians living in the country. “There are a lot of Ukrainians who will do all sorts of things for money or are upset about the situation in Ukraine,” he said, adding that those who are behind the attacks could also have been blackmailed by Ukraine.

Ordinary citizens are not on security services’ radar, he added, observing that people are constantly being arrested daily in Russia on suspicion of being behind assassination attempts.

Galeotti said: “Almost every day, all types of people are being arrested in Russia or even killed that are suspected of assassination attempts. Some of these attacks are going to get through.

“Sometimes, even if attacks are amateurish in nature, they will be successful.”

Galeotti says the assassination attempts and acts of sabotage in Russia are enabled by Moscow not having a tight security system.

The people who plan the operations are often not directly involved, which makes it hard for plots to be uncovered. “This is not like a country which is under martial law; they use all types of cut-outs and trigger men to do their dirty work,” Galeotti said.

Those directly involved in the attacks against Russia often do not know about the plans in advance, he added. He referenced a claim that a lorry driver did not realise explosives were in his vehicle before a bomb he was transporting blew up a bridge in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia. “Sometimes they have no idea that they are part of an assassination,” said Galeotti. “This is the nature of modern assassination tradecraft.”

Leighton said there was evidence to suggest Kyiv was behind Alexeyev’s attempted killing, as Ukraine’s intelligence services usually use explosives, such as car bombs, “to strike at senior Russian military officials”.

Leighton said another possibility is that Alexeyev was killed by his rivals within Russia who hold a grudge against him over him “taking part in negotiations with [Wagner warlord Yevgeny] Prigozhin after he led the mutiny”.

Leighton added: “The Ukrainians have shown that they have the ability to penetrate the Russian security services as well as Russian border controls. While they don’t have complete freedom of movement within Russia, the Ukrainians are able to blend into Russian society to a large extent. That gives them a degree of access other foreign intelligence entities would find difficult to replicate.”

According to Leighton, “the usual modus operandi for the Ukrainians is for one of their officers to hire either Russians or members of minority groups like Chechens to carry out specific missions of this type”.

He added: “Russian military bloggers have already expressed concerns that security for senior Russian officers is too lax. To put a finer point on this, Alexeyev is at least the tenth prominent individual to be targeted for such an attack since 2022. So far, he is the only one of the ten to have survived.”

Leighton observed that Alexeyev was “a key player in efforts to affect the outcome of the 2016 and 2020 US Presidential elections using cyber influence operations” and was alleged to have orchestrated the use of the Novichok nerve agent in the 2019 Salisbury incident in the UK.

“It’s safe to say that Alexeyev is one of the driving forces in Russia’s hybrid warfare activities. His wide-ranging portfolio showcased his versatility across several dimensions of warfare, from conventional targeting to assassination attempts to cyber warfare.”