Another suspicious death, another signal from Putin to his enemies and to the world. The Russian helicopter pilot who defected last year in a covert operation in Ukraine has been found dead in Spain, Kiev's main military intelligence agency Maksim Kuzminov said. Kuzminov he was found lifeless last Tuesday on the parking ramp under the apartment building where he lived after he moved with a new identity to the city of Villajoyosa (Alicante), on the Mediterranean coast, an area very popular with tourists. Sources indicate that Kuzminov was murdered by gunmen who fired 12 shots at him. A burnt car was found near the town of El Campello, on the Costa Blanca. Spanish police initially speculated that the conflict was linked to a criminal gang, before discovering the victim's identity and his involvement in the war and the Russian invasion.
Kuzminov became known after crossing the front line last August during a flight between two Russian air bases, with the intention of transporting parts destined for SU-27 and Su-30 fighter planes. Instead of following the established route, he landed his twin-engine Mi-8 AMTSh helicopter on Ukrainian territory, while his two fellow pilots were killed. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's GUR intelligence agency, said his agents persuaded Kuzminov to defect as part of an elaborate six-month operation. Budanov added that before the desertion, the pilot's family had been evacuated from Russia.
The Spanish National Police made no statement. Some Russian commentators linked to the Defense Ministry have argued that reports of Kuzminov's killing were invented by Ukrainian intelligence services to fake his death. “There is no need to panic too much,” Vladimir Rogov, a Russian official in the southern region of Ukraine, wrote on Telegram. “They want to create a new biography, erase the past and give the traitor a new name,” he added. But the circumstances remain to be clarified.
That the murder was signed by Russian intelligence is certainly not a secret and in case there were any doubts, just read what the head of Russian external intelligence, Serghei Naryshkin, a very close collaborator of Vladimir Putin, declared to Tass: « Kuzminov was a traitor and criminal who became a moral corpse even when he planned his dirty and terrible crime.” The death of Maksim Kuzminov is none other than the latest execution abroad carried out by Russian killers who evidently enjoy complicity in European countries where they commit crimes with impunity. In 2006, two agents of the FSB, the Russian Federal Security Service, poisoned Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko with a herbal tea in which a radioactive substance had been dissolved. A public inquiry later concluded that “Putin probably personally ordered the murder.”
In 2018, two Russian military intelligence officers GUR attempted to kill Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. Kuzminov appeared last September at a press conference in Kiev, accompanied by two uniformed Ukrainian military personnel. He said he had tried to reassure his two fellow pilots by assuring them that they would be treated well in Ukraine. “However, they panicked, started behaving aggressively and eventually fled the helicopter,” he said. He said he took off at 4.30pm local time on August 23, 2023 from Kursk airport, Russia, and flew at low altitude and without radio communications near Ukraine. Russian soldiers opened fire as he crossed the border. «I can't say for sure who started it, but I assume it was the Russian side. They shot me in the leg with small arms fire. Then I flew for about 20 km and landed in the designated place without ever having bombed Ukraine.”, Kuzminov said. According to some rumors last September he was considering the possibility of joining the Ukrainian air force, then silence. However, no one knows why he suddenly changed his mind and above all the reason that pushed him to leave the relative safety of Ukraine to go to Spain and in particular the area of Alicante where the presence of the Russian mafia is very strong and as is known in the Kremlin. In this regard, there are no more police operations against Russian godfathers such as Alexei Sirokov arrested near Alicante on 14 December 2020 as part of “Operation Testudo”, in which another 25 people were arrested and among them were also some public officials who facilitated Sirokov in his massive real estate activities. Operation Testudo, which required seven years of investigations, is considered the most important operation against the mafias in Eastern Europe and Russia in the last 10 years.
