Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Sunday that a man suspected of shooting the deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency in Moscow had been arrested in Dubai and handed over to Russia.

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev was hospitalized after being shot several times by an assailant in an apartment building in northwestern Moscow on Friday, Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said. The attack followed a series of assassinations of high-ranking military officers that Russia blamed on Ukraine.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that Russian citizen Ljubomir Korba was detained in Dubai on suspicion of having carried out the shooting. In a statement on its website, the FSB said it had also identified two “accomplices”, one of whom was detained in Moscow and the other who “went to Ukraine.”

Asked about the shooting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that law enforcement agencies would continue to investigate, but described it as an apparent “terrorist act” by Ukraine intended to derail peace talks.

Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Russian accusations.

The shooting followed peace talks in Abu Dhabi

The shooting came a day after Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators wrapped up two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, aimed at ending the nearly four-year conflict in Ukraine. The Russian delegation was led by Alekseyev’s boss, the head of military intelligence, Admiral Igor Kostyukov.

Alekseyev, 64, has been the first deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, since 2011.

He was awarded the Hero of Russia medal for his role in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria. In June 2023, he was shown on state TV talking to mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, when his Wagner group seized military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don during his short-lived rebellion.

Since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian authorities have accused Kiev of several murders of military officers and public figures in Russia. Ukraine claimed responsibility for some of them.

In December, a car bomb killed a lieutenant general. Fanil Sarvarov, Head of the Directorate for Operational Training of the Main Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

In April, another high-ranking Russian military officer, Lieutenant General. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the Main Operations Department at the General Staff, was killed by a bomb planted in his car parked near his apartment building near Moscow. A Russian who previously lived in Ukraine pleaded guilty to carrying out the attack and said he was paid by Ukrainian security services.

Days after Moskalik’s murder, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had received a report from the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence agency about the “liquidation” of top Russian military figures, adding that “justice is inevitably coming” — though he did not mention Moskalik by name.

In December 2024, gen. Igor Kirillov, head of the military forces for nuclear, biological and chemical protection, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter in front of his apartment building. Kirilov’s assistant also died. The Ukrainian security service claimed responsibility for the attack.

A deadly Russian airstrike hit Ukraine overnight

A Russian airstrike on a residential neighborhood in eastern Ukraine killed one person and wounded two, officials said Sunday, after Zelenskyy said the US had given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach a peace deal.

The attack on the city of Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, caused a fire in a nine-story apartment building, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Russia also struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Poltava region overnight on Sunday, Serhii Koretskyi, CEO of Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz, said.

Russia put a strain on Ukraine’s electricity grid, especially in winter, throughout the war. It aims to weaken Ukraine’s will to resist in a strategy Kiev officials call “weaponizing winter.”

Zelenskyy told reporters on Friday that the US had given Ukraine and Russia until June to reach an agreement to end the war. If the June deadline is not met, the Trump administration is likely to apply pressure on both sides, he said.

“The Americans propose to the parties to end the war by the beginning of this summer and they will probably put pressure on the parties according to that schedule,” the Ukrainian president said. “And they say they want to do everything by June. And they will do everything to end the war. And they want a clear schedule of all events.”