{"id":100658,"date":"2024-02-20T02:46:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T02:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.estaql.com\/russian-helicopter-pilot-who-defected-to-ukraine-shot-dead-in-spain-world-news\/"},"modified":"2024-02-20T02:46:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T02:46:05","slug":"russian-helicopter-pilot-who-defected-to-ukraine-shot-dead-in-spain-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/russian-helicopter-pilot-who-defected-to-ukraine-shot-dead-in-spain-world-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine shot dead in Spain | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine shot dead in Spain | World News<\/h2>\n

Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine shot dead in Spain | World News<\/p>\n

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A Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine last year has reportedly been found dead in an underground car park in Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maxim Kuzminov’s body was found with gunshot wounds on 13 February in the town of Villajoyosa, near Alicante in southern Spain.<\/p>\n

Spanish media reported that investigators were searching for two suspects who had fled in a vehicle that was later found burnt out in a nearby town.<\/p>\n

Russia-Ukraine latest: Follow live updates<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a flight between two Russian<\/strong> air bases last August, Mr Kuzminov instead landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine with his Mi-8 helicopter as part of a secret operation.<\/p>\n

Ukraine<\/strong>‘s GUR military intelligence said it had lured him into defecting.<\/p>\n

Russian state media claimed at the time of the defection that Mr Kuzminov shot and killed two crew members on board the helicopter who were unhappy about landing in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Mr Kuzminov was also shot in the leg during the flight, but it was unclear by whom.<\/p>\n

In an interview broadcast by Ukraine’s authorities at the time, Mr Kuzminov said: “I contacted representatives of Ukrainian intelligence, explained my situation, to which they offered this option: ‘Come on, we guarantee your safety, guarantee new documents, guarantee monetary compensation, a reward’.”<\/p>\n

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In a separate documentary, Mr Kuzminov accused Putin of committing “genocide” in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

He said: “I am very offended by what is happening now [in Ukraine]. Murder, tears, blood. Just people killing each other.<\/p>\n

“What is happening now is just genocide of the Ukrainian people, both Ukrainian and Russian.”<\/p>\n

Officers from Russia’s GRU military intelligence outfit had previously said on Russian state television that they received the order for Mr Kuzminov’s execution.<\/p>\n

One officer said: “We’ll find the man and punish him for betraying his brothers to the fullest extent of our country’s law.”<\/p>\n

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Russian state media blamed Ukraine for Mr Kuzminov’s death, with TASS claiming: “Ukrainian intelligence agencies could have eliminated [Mr Kuzminov] as an inconvenient witness.”<\/p>\n

Mr Kuzminov is believed to have been living in Spain with a Ukrainian passport under a different name. His wife and children were brought to Ukraine before he defected.<\/p>\n

His death comes just days after Vladimir Putin’s main opponent Alexei Navalny<\/strong> died in an Arctic penal colony.<\/p>\n

Read more:
Alexei Navalny’s widow claims he was poisoned<\/strong>
Who will carry the torch for freedom and democracy in Russia?<\/strong>
Navalny’s body ‘in morgue’ as inmate describes ‘mysterious commotion’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Kuzminov is not the first Russian dissident to be killed in Europe.<\/p>\n

Alexander Litvinenko was killed after he was given a radioactive cup of tea in London in 2006. A public inquiry subsequently concluded that Putin had “probably” personally instructed Moscow’s federal security service, the FSB, to arrange the murder.<\/p>\n

In 2018, two officers from the GRU allegedly tried to kill the Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal <\/strong>in Salisbury.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine shot dead in Spain | World News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine shot dead in Spain | World News Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine shot dead in Spain | World News A Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine last year has reportedly been found dead in an underground car park in Spain.\u00a0 Maxim Kuzminov’s body was found with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7711],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7711"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}