枪手维克多·伊万诺维奇·伊林(俄语:Виктор Иванович Ильин),1948年生于列宁格勒。1968年从一所技术学院毕业后入伍[2],军衔中尉[3]。伊林一直怨恨强行征兵[4],对苏联入侵捷克斯洛伐克感到强烈不满[2]。1969年1月21日,伊林从部队偷走两把标准规格的马卡洛夫手枪后,回到列宁格勒的家,偷走姐夫的警服。暗自离家后,他孤身前往莫斯科[4]。
^Gunman Fires Twice Close to Gorbachev at a Moscow Parade. The New York Times. 8 November 1990 [30 April 2011]. (原始内容存档于2019-01-21). The last time shots were known to have been fired near a Soviet leader was in January 1969, when a young army lieutenant shot at a car he thought was carrying Leonid I. Brezhnev. The officer, Viktor Ilyin, was freed from solitary confinement in 1988.
^That Old Car Smell: Soviet motor nostalgia grows among Russian elite. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 2010-06-20 [2011-04-30]. (原始内容存档于2016-09-11). A recent exhibit in Moscow featured a limousine that had played a role in an assassination attempt on Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1969....
^ 8.08.1Kremlin: Then There Were Shots. The New York Times. 26 January 1969 [2011-04-30]. (原始内容存档于2013-10-16). ...the assailant had no reason to fire on the astronauts, who are popular figures in the Soviet Union