The head of the Russian Foreign Espionage Service, Sergei Narishkin, assured today that Maxim Kuzminov, the Russian pilot who defected in a helicopter to Ukraine and was murdered in the Alicante town of Vila Joiosa, was a “traitor.”
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse the moment he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” Narishkin said, 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 on the desertion in October, the reporter announced that the order to liquidate the pilot had already been given.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said during his daily telephone press conference that he is not aware that the Spanish authorities informed Moscow about what happened. Furthermore, he specified that Kuzminov’s death “is not an issue” on the Kremlin’s agenda.
Kuzminov was shot to death on February 13 in a garage in an urbanization in Villajoyosa (Spain), as sources close to the investigation confirmed to Efe this Monday.
Although the documentation found for the deceased does not correspond to that of Kuzminov, because it confirmed that he was from a 33-year-old Ukrainian, the sources consulted by Efe clarified that he is the pilot who deserted from the Russian troops.
This Monday the Ukrainian media Kyiv Post also reported that the representative of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), Andri Yusov, confirmed the death of the pilot, although he did not mention the place where the body was found.
A GUR source told another Ukrainian media outlet, Ukrainska Pravda, that the pilot was shot dead and that a burned-out car was found near his home that could have been used by the murderers, the latter of which coincides with what happened in Spain because little Later, the vehicle supposedly used by the attackers in their escape was found on fire.
According to the GUR, Kuzminov had decided to go live in Spain instead of staying in Ukraine.
The Russian’s defection became known in September last year when the Ukrainian GUR published images in which the pilot, who was then 28 years old, explained how he was contacted by enemy military intelligence, which offered him to join the Ukrainian side. money exchange and protection.
