The man found dead last week with six shots in La Vila Joiosa (Alicante) has been identified as Maxim Kuzmínov, the Russian pilot who deserted last August with his combat helicopter to surrender to the Ukrainian Army, according to sources from the Guard. Civil.
The identity of the murdered man has been confirmed through his fingerprints, since he was carrying false documentation, in which he appeared as a Ukrainian citizen.
The Ukrainian media
Kyiv Post
already reported this Monday that the representative of the Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) Andri Yusov had confirmed the death of Kuzminov in Spain.
His escape and landing with a Mi-8 fighter at a military base in the Kharkiv region, in eastern Ukraine and on the border with Russia, was used for propaganda purposes by the Kiev authorities.
The head of Russia's Foreign Espionage Service, Sergei Narishkin, assured this Tuesday that the deceased was "a criminal traitor" and that since his defection he was "a moral corpse."
Kuzminov's body was found on the afternoon of February 13 on the ramp of the community garage in the La Cala urbanization, from where the attackers escaped in their victim's car, whom they also ran over, as revealed. research sources.
The car was found shortly afterwards on fire in the neighboring town of El Campello.
The Civil Guard suspected from the beginning of the case that the documentation of the murdered man, corresponding to a 33-year-old Ukrainian, could be false.
This Monday, the Ukrainian press already pointed out that it was Kuzminov, which has now been confirmed by sources from the Alicante armed institute.
It was a neighbor who alerted around 6:30 p.m. on the 13th to the presence of a body with gunshot wounds in the neighborhood, where mainly Russian and Ukrainian citizens live, according to investigation sources.
It was the neighbors themselves who assured the Armed Institute researchers that, although they did not know him well, they did believe they had seen him “working on a construction site in the area.”
The Russian soldier's desertion and escape became known in September of last year, when the Ukrainian GUR published images in which the pilot (who was 28 years old at the time) explained how he was contacted by enemy military intelligence, who offered him to transfer to the Ukrainian side in exchange for money and protection for him and his family.
In the video you can see Kuzminov landing with his helicopter, a Mi-8 combat helicopter, at a military base in the Kharkiv region, in eastern Ukraine and on the border with Russia.
As reported at the time by the head of the Ukrainian GUR, Kirilo Budánov, Kuzminov crossed the border flying below the radar detection area along with other members of the crew who did not know of the pilot's plans and died when they tried to flee after the landing.
Budanov also explained then that Ukrainian military intelligence had managed to remove the defecting pilot's family from Russia, as reported by the Efe agency.
The pilot said that they guaranteed his safety, offered him new documents and compensation of half a million dollars before proceeding to plan the operation.
Maxim Kuzminov did not want to go to war and ended up flying his Mi-8 helicopter to Ukraine in a joint operation with that country's intelligence service.
The pilot graduated from the Sizran Aviation School, in southern Russia.
He was assigned to serve in the Russian Far East, where among his colleagues he had a reputation for being a “calm person” and asking for “peaceful work,” cargo operations that had nothing to do with military missions, according to the Telegram channel. Russian Baza.
Kuzminov himself explained that he had defected because he was against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I regret what is happening, the murders, the tears, the blood,” he said in a documentary released by the intelligence services, ensuring that in Ukraine there were “neither fascists nor Nazis” as Moscow claimed.
“I don't want to be complicit in Russian crimes,” he said.
✊ BREAKING: Russian military Mi-8 helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov who defected to Ukraine in his helicopter will likely continue to fly helicopter missions, but for Ukrainian Armed Forces.
His grandfather was a renowned Soviet fighter & test pilot.
https://t.co/OqRMLEcdJj pic.twitter.com/KfouCD6R30
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) September 5, 2023
Kuzminov made the final decision while flying near the Russian-Ukrainian border on August 9.
He then guided the helicopter across the border at an extremely low altitude.
“Apparently, for three or four days no one (in Russia) understood what happened to me.
I landed and they welcomed me (in Ukraine),” he said.
According to the video released by kyiv, Kuzminov was injured after landing, but was offered medical assistance in time.
Meanwhile, in Russia, the Military Training Committee opened a case for “treason” against Kuzminov, and the relatives of his two companions who were murdered after landing in Ukraine asked him to pay with his life for what he did.
The crewmates, killed while trying to flee, were decorated
post-mortem
by the Russian authorities.
The head of Russia's Foreign Espionage Service, Sergei Narishkin, assured this Tuesday that Maxim Kuzminov was a "traitor."
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse the moment he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” declared Narishkin, according to the official Russian agency RIA Novosti.
Narishkin added: “In Russia it is often said: either one speaks well about the dead or one does not speak at all.”
When Russian public television reported the desertion in October, the reporter announced that the order to liquidate the pilot had already been given.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov assured during his daily telephone press conference that he is not aware that the Spanish authorities informed Moscow of what happened.
Furthermore, he specified that Kuzminov's death "is not an issue" that appears on the Kremlin's agenda.