Has Moscow’s fortress fallen? Why Russia cannot protect its generals at home?

Yusuf İnan 

Journalist | Political & Strategic Analyst

Why Russia cannot protect its generals at home?

The Russian Federation is facing one of the most complex and shaken security crises in its history. During the Cold War, Moscow was thought to possess the "world's most feared intelligence network" and an impenetrable security shield inherited from the KGB. Today, however, it stands incapable of protecting its generals, ideologues, and war propagandists within its own capital, even in its most secure compounds. The recent shooting of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, a top figure in the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) known as a "shadow man," in the stairwell of his Moscow home was the final straw.

This incident is more than an isolated "terrorist act"; it is a snapshot of a systemic collapse, indicating that Russia's "security shield" has been pierced repeatedly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. The car bomb that killed Darya Dugina, the explosion that blew up Vladlen Tatarsky in a café in the heart of St. Petersburg, and the execution of submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky during his morning run—tracked via a fitness app—all raise a single, haunting question: Has Russia become the prey in its own home?

The collapse of the FSB’s "Invincibility" myth

The Federal Security Service (FSB) is known as the most important pillar of Vladimir Putin's rule and the regime's insurance policy. However, recent years have shown that despite its massive budget, unlimited powers, and technological infrastructure, this institution remains sluggish against asymmetric threats and targeted operations.

The assassination attempt on General Vladimir Alekseyev is characterized as the peak of this intelligence failure. The fact that the first deputy head of the GRU—an institution behind critical external operations ranging from nerve agent attacks in Salisbury to interference in US elections—could be targeted in the heart of the capital proves how deep the attackers' operational capabilities within Russia have become. Alekseyev was not just a general; he was a key figure who negotiated with Prigozhin during the Wagner mutiny and established the intelligence architecture of the invasion of Ukraine. The inability to protect such a figure creates a deep crack in the Russian state's perceived competence.

Although Russian authorities reacted quickly by detaining the alleged hitman, Lyubomir Korba, in Dubai, the real question remains unanswered: How could this suspect, reportedly born in Ukraine, reach a general in Moscow with such ease and then leave the country? Security experts suggest that Russian intelligence is so focused on the war in Ukraine that fatal gaps have emerged in internal security protocols and counter-intelligence activities. While the FSB's elite units are busy with "partisan hunting" on the front lines or in occupied territories, metropolises like Moscow and St. Petersburg have become open to professional infiltration.

Victims of the ideological war: Dugina and Tatarsky

The first link in the assassination wave that made the Russian elite feel "the war has come home" was undoubtedly the killing of Darya Dugina on August 20, 2022, by a car bomb. While Alexander Dugin, the architect of Eurasianism often called "Putin's brain" in Western media, was thought to be the actual target, Darya's death sent a clear message to the Russian elite: "The war is not just on the Donbas steppes; it is in Moscow's luxury suburbs, right at your doorstep."

This attack was the first concrete sign that Ukrainian intelligence services (SBU and GUR) had changed strategy. Struggling to cope with Russia's manpower and ammunition in conventional warfare, Kiev decided to carry the war to Russian soil using "hybrid" methods. The Dugina assassination shocked nationalist circles in Russia and shattered the perception of a "safe zone." Although the FSB immediately identified a Ukrainian woman as the perpetrator and claimed she fled to Estonia, the failure to prevent the attack was a major embarrassment.

A similar fate was shared by military blogger Maxim Fomin, known by the alias "Vladlen Tatarsky," in St. Petersburg on April 2, 2023. Tatarsky, one of the most powerful and radical voices of the Kremlin's war propaganda, was killed when a bomb hidden inside a statuette gifted to him exploded. This attack demonstrated that Russian intelligence could not protect not only generals but also civilian figures amplifying the regime's voice, failing to provide security even in public spaces.

The "Strava" murder: Digital intelligence and state ignorance

One of the most striking and perhaps shameful examples of Russia losing its "cold-blooded operational strategy" and discipline was the killing of former submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky in Krasnodar. Rzhitsky was accused of commanding a submarine that rained Kalibr missiles on Ukrainian cities and was on Ukraine's "blacklist".

The details of the Rzhitsky incident, who was shot during a morning run on July 10, 2023, revealed indiscipline and a lack of digital literacy within the Russian security bureaucracy. The commander was publicly sharing his running route and timing on the popular fitness app Strava. The assassin needed no complex intelligence network, satellite tracking, or insider information; he simply followed a public app to know where the target would be. This event exposed the ignorance of Russian state officials regarding digital security and the state's inability to protect them even against basic Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) methods.

Ukraine's "Mossad" strategy and the Budanov factor

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine (GUR), has openly declared this strategy by repeatedly stating, "We will find Russian war criminals wherever they are and punish them." With logistical and informational support from Western intelligence services, Ukraine is pursuing a "targeted liquidation" strategy similar to the "Wrath of God" operations implemented by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad after the 1970 Munich Massacre.

This strategy serves two devastating purposes against Russia:

1. Psychological Collapse and Paranoia: Creating a constant climate of fear and paranoia among the Russian command echelon, propagandists, and elites with the message, "You are not safe even in Moscow, in your home, or in your favorite café."

2. Operational Paralysis: Forcing Russian generals and decision-makers to live under constant protection and restrict their movements, thereby slowing down decision-making mechanisms, distracting them, and rendering them unable to do their jobs.

Claims that the suspect who shot General Alekseyev was linked to Ukrainian intelligence show how audacious this strategy has become. The attacker's flight to Dubai also indicates that the operation was supported by an international logistical network.

Where is the problem? Why can't Russia defend itself?

According to strategists and security analysts, there are three fundamental structural reasons for this security vulnerability in Russia:

1. Resource Misallocation and Exhaustion: Russia has shifted a large portion of its most talented and experienced intelligence personnel to the occupied territories in Ukraine for "filtration" (interrogation and screening) operations, combating partisans, and tactical intelligence on the front lines. This has created serious personnel and attention gaps in counter-intelligence activities in the homeland (Moscow, St. Petersburg). The FSB left the main fortress vulnerable while trying to be everywhere at once.

2. Corruption, Incompetence, and Negligence: The Russian security bureaucracy has been struggling with loyalty-based appointments and systemic corruption for years. Border security officers allowing passages for bribes, security cameras not working, or security protocols remaining only on paper make the assassins' jobs easier. As in the Stanislav Rzhitsky example, high-ranking soldiers violating basic security rules (like sharing location) is also an indicator of poor training.

3. "Masking" Internal Reckonings: Not every assassination may necessarily be the work of Ukraine. As in the example of the downing of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane or the suspicious deaths of some energy executives, conflicts between power centers, oligarchs, or security units within Russia may be resolved by disguising them as "Ukrainian assassinations." Figures like General Alekseyev, who have deep ties to the GRU and Wagner and are influential in domestic politics, always carry the possibility of being victims of clique wars within the Ministry of Defense.

Conclusion: Fear is now within the Kremlin's walls

With the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has entered not only a military and economic war of attrition but also a much deeper intelligence war. The image of the "cold-blooded, calculated, and all-seeing" Russian state mind has been replaced by a state that searches for attackers in panic, whose "red lines" are crossed without prevention, and which cannot protect its generals in its own capital.

Russian intelligence, which used to show its "long arm" to the world by poisoning Litvinenko in London and Skripal in Salisbury, is today trying to defend itself in its own home, in its own bedroom. These actions by Ukrainian intelligence (or anti-regime partisans within Russia) undermine the most basic promise Putin has given to the Russian people for years: "stability and security." Every bomb that explodes and every bullet fired in Moscow goes down in history as painful and bloody evidence of Russia's transformation from a "superpower" into a state struggling to protect its own borders and its own generals.

Yusuf İnan

www.wisenewspress.com

Yusuf İnan is a journalist and author. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of WiseNewsPress.com, SehitlerOlmez.com, and YerelGundem.com, and specializes in strategic and political analysis of Turkish and global affairs.