Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine is presumed dead in Spain

Maksim Kuzminov made a daring escape last summer when he defected to Ukraine and handed over his military helicopter to Ukrainian commandos in exchange for half a million dollars.

Ukraine trumpeted the defection as a major coup. But in Vladimir V. Putin's Russia, he was guilty of the gravest sin anyone can commit: treason. Ukrainian intelligence officials warned Mr. Kuzminov that his life was in danger and urged him not to leave the country.

But he ignored them and it was believed he had moved with his money to a small seaside town of pastel-coloured houses on Spain's Mediterranean coast.

Now Mr. Kuzminov, 28 at the time of his defection, appears to have met the harsh fate that Ukrainian officials warned about. Two Spanish police officials with knowledge of the case said the body of a man found riddled with bullets last week in the coastal town of Villajoyosa belonged to Mr Kuzminov.

Andriy Cherniak, a representative of Ukrainian military intelligence, also said he could “confirm the fact of his death,” referring to Mr. Kuzminov, but declined to elaborate on the circumstances.

Authorities have not released any information about possible attackers or a motive, and they have not publicly confirmed their identities. The case was complicated by puzzling statements from the Guardia Civil, a branch of Spain's national police, which at one point said papers found on the body identified him as a 33-year-old Ukrainian man. But they added that the documents may be fake.

The death of such a prominent defector is likely to fuel speculation that this is the work of Russian intelligence services and worsen already heightened tensions between Moscow and European capitals. President Vladimir V. Putin has made no secret of his deep contempt for defectors and has authorized targeted killings of Russian informants abroad, Western security officials say.

The head of Moscow's foreign intelligence service appeared to back the idea that Mr. Kuzminov was dead with comments condemning his defection. “This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the moment he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” said Sergei Naryshkin. This was reported by the Russian state news agency TASS Tuesday in commenting on media reports of Mr. Kuzminov's death.

Word of Mr. Kuzminov's death came just days after Aleksei A. Navalny, Mr. Putin's most prominent political opponent, died in a Russian prison, exposing what several Western leaders said were the brutal tactics of the Kremlin against its opponents. “Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny's death,” President Biden said on Friday.

Ukrainian authorities said Mr Kuzminov's defection was the culmination of a six-month operation, codenamed “Mees”, which was made public in late August. In a documentary released by the intelligence services, Mr. Kuzminov said that he had “contacted representatives of the Ukrainian intelligence service” and agreed to cooperate after being told that security in Ukraine would be guaranteed and that he would receive new identity documents and compensation received.

Mr Kuzminov said he flew his Mi-8 helicopter at low altitude and in radio silence mode into Ukrainian territory to evade detection. He landed in Vovchansk, a city near Ukraine's northeastern border with Russia, where Ukrainian special forces were waiting for him, footage from the documentary shows.

The operation to seize Mr Kuzminov's plane did not go entirely smoothly. When his Russian crewmates saw Ukrainian commandos surrounding the helicopter, they tried to force Mr. Kuzminov to take off and opened fire. Ukrainian fighters returned fire, killing the crew members, the Ukrainian official said.

“Otherwise they could have killed Kuzminov and escaped by plane,” he said. Mr Kuzminov was also injured during the operation.

Mr. Kuzminov said in the documentary that he defected because he opposed Russia's war in Ukraine and did not want to contribute to it. He encouraged other Russian soldiers to follow in his footsteps. “If you do what I did, these kinds of actions, you obviously won't regret it,” he said.

His defection was presented as a major coup for Kiev, giving Ukraine's depleted air fleet a valuable aircraft as well as information on Russian military operations from a highly trained pilot.

Mr. Kuzminov provided “valuable evidence on Russian military aviation, communications systems and airfield network to our military intelligence,” the documentary said, which compared the defection to Operation Diamond, a mission by Israel's Mossad intelligence services to investigate a Soviet-era Union-built MiG aircraft. 21 fighter jet flown by an Iraqi defector. Ukraine said it was the first time a Russian pilot defected since Moscow invaded in February 2022.

“Kuzminov had access to state secrets. He had secret documents and belongings on board the hijacked helicopter,” said a representative of the Russian counterintelligence services told Russian television in a report on the apostasy.

Ukrainian authorities said the pilot's family had been transferred from Russia to Ukraine before his defection. Andriy Yusov, an intelligence spokesman, told Ukrainian television that Mr. Kuzminov would receive a $500,000 reward for his services.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Spain has become a haven for disenchanted Russians, many of whom have moved to warmer coastal areas, data from the National Statistical Institute shows. About 20 percent live in the province of Alicante, where Mr Kuzminov's body is said to have been found.

Mr Kuzminov's activities in Ukraine, and subsequently in Spain, remain unclear. In Spain, he lived in a modest apartment building less than a 10-minute walk from the beach in a neighborhood popular with Ukrainian and Russian tourists.

The Russian television report featured unnamed Russian intelligence officials saying they would retaliate. “Of course we will find him,” one of them said. “Our long arms can reach anywhere.”

Jose Bautista And Rachel Chaundler reporting contributed