A Russian pilot who famously defected to Ukraine in 2023 with his military helicopter was found savagely murdered in an underground parking garage in Spain last week — as Russia’s spy chief labeled him a “traitor” and “moral corpse.”
Maksim Kuzminov’s body was discovered Feb. 13 in the town of Villajoyosa near Alicante in southern Spain. The 33-year-old had been riddled with at least a half-dozen bullets and was run over by his attackers’ car, reported Spain’s state news agency EFE.
The Russian defector had been living in Spain with a Ukrainian passport and under an assumed name. Kuzminov’s documents were found on his body by the police.
Andrii Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence agency GUR, which orchestrated Kuzminov’s defection, confirmed to local media that the former pilot had died in Spain but did not go into details.
Alexei Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Ukrainian officials had suggested to Kuzminov that he remain in Ukraine, where he could be protected.
It is unclear how or why Kuzminov traveled to Spain.
Spanish investigators were on the hunt for two suspects in connection with Kuzminov’s murder who had fled in a vehicle that was later found torched in a nearby town, according to the Spanish news outlet La Informacion.
Speaking to local reporters, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, blasted Kuzminov as a “traitor and criminal” who became a “moral corpse” as soon as he started planning “his dirty and terrible crime,” according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
Kuzminov made international headlines in August when he flew his Mi-8 chopper to Kharkiv in Ukraine, capping off a six-month operation planned by GUR, which presented the defection as a major coup for Kyiv.
Kuzminov later appeared in a Ukrainian TV documentary, “Downed Russian Pilots,” in which he explained his reasons for turning his back on his native country.
“Murder, tears, blood. People are simply killing each other,” he said of the war being waged by Russia against Ukraine. “That’s all I can make of this, and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
Kuzmionv said he had contacted Ukraine’s intelligence service, saying he wanted to defect – and was given ample assurances.
“‘Come on, we guarantee your safety, guarantee new documents, guarantee monetary compensation, a reward,’” he said he was told.
Kuzminov, who also had his family smuggled out of Russia, urged his former compatriots to follow in his footsteps, saying: “If you do what I did, this kind of thing, you will not regret it at all.”
With Post wires