Maksim Kuzminov pulled off a daring escape final summer season when he defected to Ukraine and handed his army helicopter over to Ukrainian commandos in change for half one million {dollars}.
Ukraine trumpeted the defection as a serious coup. However in Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, he was responsible of essentially the most grievous sin anybody can commit: Treason. Ukrainian intelligence officers warned Mr. Kuzminov that his life was at risk and urged him to not go away the nation.
However he ignored them, and was believed to have moved along with his cash to a small resort city of pastel homes on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.
Now Mr. Kuzminov, 28 on the time of his defection, seems to have met the cruel destiny Ukrainian officers warned of. Two Spanish police officers with information of the case stated the physique of a person discovered riddled with bullets final week within the coastal city of Villajoyosa belonged to Mr. Kuzminov.
Andriy Cherniak, a consultant of Ukraine’s army intelligence, additionally stated he may “verify the actual fact of his loss of life,” referring to Mr. Kuzminov, however he declined to elaborate on the circumstances.
Authorities launched no details about attainable assailants or a motive, and so they haven’t publicly confirmed the identification. The case has been sophisticated by puzzling statements issued by the Civil Guard, a department of Spain’s nationwide police forces, which at one level stated the papers discovered on the physique recognized him as a 33-year-old Ukrainian man. However they added that the paperwork could also be faux.
The loss of life of such a excessive profile defector is prone to gasoline hypothesis that it was the work of Russia’s intelligence providers and exacerbate already heightened tensions between Moscow and European capitals. President Vladimir V. Putin has made no secret of his deep disdain for defectors and has allowed focused assassinations of Russian informants overseas, Western safety officers say.
Moscow’s international intelligence chief appeared to assist the concept that Mr. Kuzminov was lifeless with feedback that condemned his defection. “This traitor and prison grew to become an ethical corpse on the very second he deliberate his soiled and horrible crime,” Sergei Naryshkin instructed the Russian state information company TASS on Tuesday, commenting on media studies of Mr. Kuzminov’s loss of life.
Phrase of Mr. Kuzminov’s loss of life got here just some days after Aleksei A. Navalny, Mr. Putin’s most outstanding political adversary, died in a Russian jail, exposing what a number of Western leaders stated are the Kremlin’s brutal techniques in opposition to its opponents. “Make no mistake: Putin is chargeable for Navalny’s loss of life,” President Biden stated on Friday.
Ukrainian authorities stated the defection of Mr. Kuzminov was the end result of a six-month operation, code-named “Titmouse,” which was made public in late August. In a documentary launched by the intelligence providers, Mr. Kuzminov stated he had “contacted representatives of Ukrainian intelligence” and agreed to cooperate after being instructed he could be assured security in Ukraine and obtain new identification paperwork and a compensation.
Mr. Kuzminov stated he had flown his Mi-8 helicopter into Ukrainian territory at low altitude and in radio-silence mode to evade detection. He landed in Vovchansk, a city close to Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia, the place Ukrainian particular forces had been ready for him, in response to footage from the documentary.
The operation to grab Mr. Kuzminov’s plane didn’t go utterly easily. When his Russian crew mates noticed Ukrainian commandos surrounding the helicopter, they tried to pressure Mr. Kuzminov to take off, and opened hearth. Ukrainian fighters returned hearth and killed the crew members, the Ukrainian official stated.
“In any other case, they may have killed Kuzminov and escaped within the plane,” he stated. Mr. Kuzminov was additionally injured through the operation.
Mr. Kuzminov stated within the documentary that he defected as a result of he opposed Russia’s struggle in Ukraine and didn’t wish to contribute to it. He inspired different Russian servicemen to comply with in his footsteps. “After all in the event you do what I did, this sort of act, you’ll not remorse it in any respect,” he stated.
His defection was offered as a serious coup for Kyiv, bringing to Ukraine’s depleted air fleet a valuable piece of plane, in addition to intelligence about Russian army operations from a extremely educated pilot.
Mr. Kuzminov offered “useful proof about Russia’s military aviation, communication programs, and airfield community to our army intelligence,” the documentary stated, evaluating the defection to Operation Diamond, a mission by Israel’s Mossad intelligence providers to seize a Soviet-built MiG-21 fighter jet flown by an Iraqi defector. Ukraine stated it was the primary time a Russian pilot defected since Moscow invaded in February 2022.
“Kuzminov had entry to state secrets and techniques. He carried categorised paperwork and gadgets onboard the hijacked helicopter,” a consultant of Russia’s counterintelligence providers instructed Russian tv in a report on the defection.
Ukrainian authorities stated the pilot’s household had been extracted from Russia to Ukraine earlier than his defection. Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the intelligence providers, instructed Ukrainian tv that Mr. Kuzminov would obtain a $500,000 reward for his providers.
Because the invasion of Ukraine, Spain has turn out to be a haven for disenchanted Russians, lots of whom have moved to the hotter coastal areas, in response to information from the Nationwide Institute of Statistics. About 20 % reside within the province of Alicante the place Mr. Kuzminov’s physique was believed to have been discovered.
Mr. Kuzminov’s actions in Ukraine, after which in Spain, stay unclear. In Spain, he lived in a modest house constructing lower than a ten minute stroll from the seashore in a neighborhood in style with Ukrainian and Russian vacationers.
The Russian tv report featured unnamed officers of Russia’s intelligence providers saying they might search revenge. “After all we’ll discover him,” certainly one of them stated. “Our lengthy arms can attain in every single place.”
José Bautista and Rachel Chaundler contributed reporting
