A criminal facing home invasion charges was meant to be deported in 2007

A violent criminal with links to a Russian organised crime boss should have been deported to Ukraine 15 years ago, but instead has continued to add more alleged crimes to his lengthy rap sheet.

The man was arrested and charged over an alleged home invasion earlier this year. Picture: Gaye Gerard

A criminal facing charges over a brutal Melbourne home invasion in which a shot was fired was marked for deportation more than a decade ago.

Police had as far back as 2007 wanted the man banished back to Ukraine after assessing him as a violent recidivist who was a risk to public safety.

It was alleged then that he was linked to a Russian organised crime boss who shot a police informer in the head in an attempted murder.

In 2007, then-Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews gave him a matter of weeks to outline why he should have been allowed to stay in Australia.

But, for reasons unclear, the man was never deported and has since continued to rack up offences.

The special operations group, which is used for high-risk arrests, detained him last month.

That arrest was related to an armed crime squad investigation into an eastern suburbs home invasion in which a man was bashed and a shot fired by two intruders.

The victim was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

A woman and children were also in the house when it was stormed by the suspects in the dead of night.

The Ukrainian-born suspect was later charged with aggravated home invasion, reckless conduct endangering life, intentionally causing serious injury and false imprisonment.

At the time of the home invasion, he was facing charges of committing an indictable offence while on bail and drug and stolen goods counts.

His criminal history in Victoria goes back to the 1990s and includes dozens of offences, including intentionally causing injury and making threats to kill.

He was convicted in 2005 of involvement in a burglary gang which stole property worth $1.7m.

That resulted in him being jailed for five years for aggravated burglary, multiple counts of burglary and possession of a prohibited weapon, ammunition and police identification.

Among his associates in that period was a man regarded as a Russian mafia figure who shot a police informer in the head in 2001.

The victim survived and another attempt was later made on his life when he moved interstate.

The man arrested last month has been charged more than 100 times by police since 1998.