Tuesday 10 May 2022 05:44 PM Putin cuts FSB from lead intelligence role in Ukraine for man 'who orchestrated ... trends now
The military intelligence officer believed to have orchestrated the 2018 poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury has now been tasked with leading Russia's intelligence operation in Ukraine.
Vladimir Alekseev, a leading officer of a heavily militarised branch of the GRU - Russia's military intelligence directorate, has now assumed command of Russia's spy operations in Ukraine after Putin reportedly dropped the FSB - Russia's domestic intelligence service - from its role following the disastrous start to the war.
The strategic change represents a significant shift in the leadership of Moscow's 'special military operation', and was publicly acknowledged for the first time last week when the pro-Putin Tsargrad TV channel identified Alekseev as the top spy general overseeing intelligence operations.
Lieutenant General Alekseev, who is Ukrainian-born, was a former Spetsnaz special forces operative and has a reputation for brutality during Russian military action in Syria and the Donbas region, according to Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) senior fellows Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov.
The Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Ministry of Defence lists Alekseev as a 'Ukrainian-born international criminal involved in the massacre of Syrian children and women who continues to faithfully serve the Putin regime and is directly involved in the destruction of his homeland'.
But the Lieutenant General was awarded the title of 'Hero of the Russian Federation' by Putin in 2017 for 'courage and heroism displayed in the course of military duties'.
Alekseev's appointment to head of intelligence operations in Ukraine is the latest in a series of personnel changes.
His promotion comes almost a month after the 'Butcher of Syria' - Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov - was drafted in to lead Russia's faltering war effort in early April.
Vladimir Alekseev, a leading officer of a heavily militarised branch of the GRU - Russia's military intelligence directorate, has now assumed command of Russia's spy operations in Ukraine after Putin reportedly dropped the FSB - Russia's domestic intelligence service - from its role following the disastrous start to the war
Alekseev is now leading intelligence-gathering operations in Ukraine, where Putin's forces are launching an all-out assault to seize territory in the eastern Donbas region (Ukrainian firefighters putting out a fire after Russian missiles hit a school in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region in the Donbas on May, 7, 2022)
Women stand next to a damaged apartment building after the recent Russian airstrike, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, 06 May 2022
Captain General Aleksandr Dvornikov, dubbed by some as the 'Butcher of Syria', has been ordered by the Kremlin to seize the whole of Ukraine's eastern Donbas
Servicemen of Russian Army and Donetsk People's Republic militia guard the camp where local residents who left a shelter in the Metallurgical Combine Azovstal temporary staying in Bezimenne, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, eastern Ukraine, Friday, May 6, 2022
Besides his fearsome reputation for brutality in Syria and military operations in the Donbas region from 2014 onwards, Alekseev is widely believed to have ordered the poisoning of Russian double agent Skripal with the now-infamous chemical weapon Novichok in Salisbury in 2018.
Three GRU operatives, going by the aliases of Sergei Fedotov, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were accused of attempted murder when they smeared Novichok on Skripal's front door.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia both survived but were taken seriously ill
