Vladimir Stepanovich Alekseyev was born on 24 April 1961, in the village of Holodky,
Khmilnyk Raion,
Vinnytsia Oblast, in the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He was the son of a disabled father and a nurse mother. Villagers later recalled that Alekseyev showed an interest in a military career from a young age. After completing secondary school, he was unsuccessful in gaining admission to a military school, and was subsequently conscripted into the military. Alekseyev was then admitted to the
Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School, graduating in 1984. He moved to Russia and married a Russian woman, Galina, with whom he had two children. Alekseyev served in
Spetsnaz special forces units, rising to chief of the intelligence directorate of the
Moscow Military District headquarters, and then in the same position in the
Far Eastern Military District. Later he was transferred to the central staff of the
Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), where he headed the 14th department, responsible for the Spetsnaz. Alekseyev was appointed chief of staff and first deputy head of the Main (Intelligence) Directorate of the
General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces in 2011, and was promoted to lieutenant general. The last time Alekseyev visited his birthplace was in September 2014, after the
War in Donbas had begun, for the funeral of his mother. During the
Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war, he supervised military intelligence officers. For his "courage and heroism, shown in the execution of military duty," Alekseyev was awarded the title
Hero of the Russian Federation by a secret decree in 2017. In 2019 Vladimir Alekseyev, as deputy head of the GRU, led the team in Ukraine that interfered in the
2020 United States Presidential Elections through
Rudy Giuliani and the
Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. According to charges filed by Ukraine, Alekseyev paid the team of
Oleksandr Dubinsky,
Andrii Derkach, and
Kostiantyn Kulyk ten million US dollars for subversive activities. In May 2022, he was identified as the top military intelligence commander responsible for Ukraine by
Tsargrad TV, after the start of the
Russo-Ukrainian war, signaling a switch of responsibility for targeting Ukraine in intelligence operations away from the 5th Service of the FSB. Alekseyev was among the Russian representatives in the negotiations for the July 2022
Black Sea Grain Initiative, and at the time
Bellingcat investigator
Christo Grozev identified him as supervising Russian
private military companies. He was sanctioned by Canada on 19 August 2022 for being complicit in the Russian regime's aggression against Ukraine. According to
Kommersant Alekseyev is believed to have been a founder of Wagner as well as other private military companies. When the
Wagner Group rebellion began on 23 June 2023, Alekseyev appeared in a video in which he condemned the actions of the Wagner Group as a coup, a "stab in the back of the country and president. Only the president has the authority to appoint senior military leadership, and you are trying to encroach on his power." Hours later, Alekseyev and deputy minister of defense
Yunus-bek Yevkurov negotiated with Wagner Group leader
Yevgeny Prigozhin in
Rostov-on-Don. In response to Prigozhin's demand to hand over Chief of the General Staff
Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister
Sergei Shoigu, he told him, "You can have them". ==Attempted assassination==