FSB revenge? A pilot who fled to Russia died

Maxim Kuzminov is a Russian military pilot who flew a Mi-8 helicopter into Ukraine in August.

The whole world learned about Maxim Kuzminov when he decided to fly a Russian helicopter over Ukraine, and then openly talk about his actions at a press conference. Today Kuzminov was found dead in Spain.

Power steering operation

In September 2023, the State Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine published a film in which it described the details of the Russian MI-8 helicopter’s infiltration operation. In it, Russian military pilot Maxim Kuzminov explained that he contacted the Ukrainian intelligence services because he did not want to contribute to Russian crimes against Ukraine.

Kuzminov said that he took off from the Kursk airport and headed for the Kharkov region, and near the village of Shebekino “he flew at a very low altitude of 5-10 meters in radio silence.”

According to Kuzminov, he was accompanied by two crew members in the helicopter. “We don’t carry weapons. Our pilots fly without weapons. No one can give me any objection. Because the navigator… he doesn’t have the skills to fly a helicopter,” the pilot said.

Further, according to him, the events developed like this: “I calmed the men, said that everything is fine, that they are good people, everything will be wonderful. But they started to get scared and started to act quite aggressively. And, it turns out, they ran out of the helicopter towards the border. Their further fate I do not know, but, as follows from the media, it is possible that they were liquidated.”

The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, said in a documentary that his department convinced Kuzminov to fly to Ukraine and hand over the Mi-8 helicopter. Two crew members, who did not know what was happening, were killed while trying to escape, he added.

Kuzminov’s relatives, according to Budanov, were helped to leave Russia before the operation.

After that, in October 2023 on the Russian state channel Russia 1 A story about Kuzminov was published in the last issue of Vesti Nedeli. The author of the story accused Kuzminov of killing the rest of the crew and said that the Russian special services had already received an order to remove him.

Circumstances of death

“We confirm the fact of the death,” said the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate.

“He decided to move to Spain instead of here. From what we know: he invited his ex to his place and was found shot,” UP quoted an unnamed Ukrainian intelligence interlocutor.

According to UP’s interlocutor, a burnt car was found nearby, where the liquidators were leaving.

Inconsistencies

Initial reports of Kuzminov’s possible death in Spain’s Alicante province raised considerable doubts. The Spanish edition of ABC reported the killing of a 33-year-old Ukrainian citizen in the city of Villajoysa, while Kuzminov was 28 years old and a citizen of the Russian Federation.

The fact that Kuzminov was killed in Spain was first written by telegram in the Spanish-language channel Eureka news, which later deleted this message, and this channel itself is associated with the creator of the famous Russian military channel Rybar, Mikhail Zvinchuk. It was also the killing of Kuzminov that was reported by the Italian website Il Corrispondente with overtly pro-Kremlin content. “Traitors do not live long, and soon the time will come to make changes,” wrote this Italian site, so many began to doubt the truth of the news about the death by Kuzminov.

The media explains the first difference in age and citizenship in new documents that the Ukrainian special services could provide to the former Russian pilot after his flight. Anonymous masked Russian security officials have indicated several times on federal television that Kuzminov, after fleeing Ukraine, is one of their priority targets. As the Russian special services found out about the transfer of Kuzminov from Ukraine to the small town of Villajoysa, now it is likely that the Spanish special services will look into it.