Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, the deputy chief of Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU), was shot multiple times in a Moscow apartment building on Friday, and hospitalized in critical condition.

The attack occurred in the northwestern part of the city, where an unidentified assailant—reportedly posing as a delivery person—fired several shots at Alekseyev in the stairway of his residential building. He sustained wounds to his foot, arm, and chest, and reportedly underwent surgery, remaining in a coma, according to Kremlin sources.

Russian authorities, including the Investigative Committee and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, confirmed the incident and opened a criminal case for attempted murder.

Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin had been informed and that security services were investigating.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed Ukraine, calling the attack a “terrorist act” intended to disrupt ongoing U.S.-mediated peace talks in Abu Dhabi, which concluded the day before.

Ukrainian officials have not officially commented on the attack. However, Denys Prokopenko, commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, posted on X that if Alekseyev survives, he “will never sleep peacefully again,” framing the attack as retribution for alleged war crimes.

Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) has previously listed Alekseyev as a war criminal for his role in intelligence operations supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including attacks on civilian targets and the orchestration of referendums in occupied territories.

Alekseyev, a Ukrainian-born officer, has been under Western sanctions since 2016 for alleged involvement in cyberattacks during the U.S. presidential election and for his alleged role in the 2018 Novichok poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England. He also allegedly played a key role in negotiating with Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin during his 2023 mutiny and was awarded the title Hero of Russia in 2017.

This attack is part of a pattern of targeted killings of Russian military officials inside Russia, including the December 2024 bombing of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov and April 2025 killings of Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik and Fanil Sarvarov—acts Russia has blamed on Ukraine, which has claimed responsibility for some.

The timing—just after high-level peace talks—has heightened speculation about escalation. While President Volodymyr Zelensky has not made any public statement as of the time of publication, Ukrainian intelligence has previously acknowledged targeting Russian military figures, stating that “justice inevitably comes.”

X has launched a new experimental feature called Collaborative Notes, designed to integrate artificial intelligence into its Community Notes system. The initiative allows eligible human contributors to request AI-generated drafts for Community Notes, which are then refined through community feedback.

The AI, powered by Grok, creates an initial draft when a user requests a note on a post. This draft is then reviewed, rated, and improved by other contributors using suggestions and ratings. The system evaluates incoming feedback to determine if a revised version constitutes a meaningful improvement before publishing it.

Only top Community Notes writers with a high “Writing Impact” score can initiate a Collaborative Note at launch. The feature is currently limited to English-language posts.

Contributors can rate notes and suggest edits, with revisions only published if they represent a meaningful improvement. A revision history is maintained for transparency, and contributors are notified if their input is used.

The feature aims to address long-standing criticisms about the slow pace of note publication. According to X’s Keith Coleman, who oversees Community Notes, the collaborative process creates a “new way to make models smarter in the process” through continuous learning from community input. This hybrid model combines AI speed with human judgment, allowing notes to evolve in real time as new feedback arrives.

“The idea: when you request a note, AI drafts one — then the community refines it together through ratings and suggestions. You can watch it get better in real time. It’s a whole new way for the public to work with AI — and each other,” X's @CommunityNotes handle wrote.

The system follows the same transparency principles as existing Community Notes, including open-source code and public data access. And X is exploring new metrics like “Collaborative Impact” points to track the influence of user suggestions.

This marks a significant evolution from earlier experiments, such as the 2025 pilot that allowed AI bots to generate notes independently. In that model, AI-written notes were subject to human rating but not direct editing. The new Collaborative Notes feature represents a more integrated, iterative process where humans and AI co-create content together.

The move aligns with broader research advocating for hybrid human-LLM systems in content moderation. A 2025 study co-authored by X and institutions like MIT, Stanford, and Harvard supports this approach, arguing it can expand reach and speed while preserving trust.

X emphasizes that AI is not meant to replace humans but to augment the community’s ability to scale fact-checking efforts—especially for high-visibility or rapidly spreading content. This addresses long-standing criticism of slow community note publication.

SpaceX has unveiled Stargaze, a new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) system designed to enhance satellite safety in low Earth orbit (LEO) by drastically improving collision detection and response times.

The system leverages data from nearly 30,000 star trackers embedded across SpaceX’s Starlink satellite fleet, enabling continuous, multi-angle monitoring of objects in orbit. This network generates approximately 30 million object transits daily, providing near real-time positional and velocity estimates for satellites and space debris—significantly outpacing traditional ground-based radar systems that typically observe objects only a few times per day.

CEO Elon Musk announced the initiative on X, stating:  “This will greatly reduce the probability of collisions that create orbital debris (space junk) hazards.” He emphasized that SpaceX will make Stargaze’s conjunction screening data freely available to all satellite operators worldwide, aiming to foster industry-wide cooperation and safer space traffic management.

Stargaze comes amid growing concerns over orbital congestion. With over 14,000 active and inactive satellites in LEO—including around 3,500 non-operational ones—risks of collisions have surged. Uncoordinated maneuvers, abandoned rocket bodies, and anti-satellite tests have further heightened danger.

A key example occurred in late 2025, when a Starlink satellite faced a third-party spacecraft whose operator did not share trajectory data. Initial predictions showed a safe 9,000-meter miss distance.

However, five hours before closest approach, the third-party satellite executed an unannounced maneuver, reducing the gap to just 60 meters. Stargaze detected the change almost immediately, generated updated Conjunction Data Messages (CDMs) within minutes, and enabled the Starlink satellite to execute an avoidance maneuver within an hour—preventing a potential collision. Legacy systems would have failed to respond in time.

Stargaze’s core innovation lies in using Starlink satellites themselves as passive sensors, turning their star trackers into a distributed space-based surveillance network. The system operates via a reciprocal data-sharing model: operators who submit their own ephemeris data receive Stargaze-generated CDMs and data from other participants.

From spring 2026, this service will be fully rolled out to all satellite operators who share trajectory information.

The initiative follows a growing industry demand for transparency and coordination, especially after incidents like a near-collision with a Chinese-deployed satellite.

SpaceX is also developing a massive satellite constellation (potentially 1 million satellites) to power its xAI artificial intelligence project, making Stargaze even more critical for managing future orbital density.

Musk's Stargaze represents a paradigm shift in space traffic management—moving from infrequent, reactive tracking to continuous, proactive monitoring—potentially setting a new global standard for orbital safety.