deserter Russian pilot shot down near Alicante in Spain

The body of Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian army deserter, was found riddled with bullets in an underground parking lot near the city of Alicante in Spain.

Maxim Kouzminov was the victim of a targeted assassination on February 13, 2024. This is one of the great specialties of Russian intelligence. The Spanish authorities took almost a week to identify him because he was in possession of false papers which had been provided to him by the Ukrainian special services, after the success of the operation “Synytsia” at the end of summer 2023. Kouzminov, 28, a helicopter pilot, managed to cross the border and reach Kharkiv, Ukraine, by flying at low altitude. He had escaped radar and delivered to the Ukrainians a Mi 8 helicopter, confidential documents and cutting-edge military technology.

This masterful feat of war for the Ukrainian army was a terrible humiliation for the Kremlin. Upon his arrival in Kharkiv, the Russian deserter received a hero’s welcome. He received a reward of almost 500,000 euros and revealed all the details of the plan submitted to him by Ukrainian intelligence. “Once my security and monetary compensation were sorted out, we started planning my flight, explained Maxim Kuzminov on Ukrainian television. My goal is not to stay, because I know very well how this will end. Ukraine will win this war. I’ve already been through a lot. Nobody wants this war. You’ll see, it’s only a matter of time before Ukraine wins.”

After the operation, the young Russian pilot gave several interviews, without hiding, then he reached a small town on the southern Spanish coast, where he tried to escape the GRU, the all-powerful military intelligence service. Russian.

Threat carried out

In the weeks following Operation Synytsia, Russian television made it clear that this betrayal would not go unpunished and Kuzminov knew this perfectly well. He himself repeated that his elimination was not “only a matter of time”. Every Russian citizen around the world who disagrees with the Kremlin knows they will be hunted down. Their fate depends on the seriousness of the crime they committed in the eyes of Russian power.

Tracking down traitors and enemies of power across borders is a Russian specialty. This is one of the missions of unit 29155 of the GRU, foreign agents who have specialized in clandestine operations for decades. From the first hours of the war in Afghanistan, at the end of the 1970s, the Spetznaz, the special forces, reached the heart of power by assassinating the Afghan president. Closer to France, they are at the origin of the poisoning, in 2018, of Sergei Skripal, a former member of the house, who moved to the British camp.

The list of these operations is very long and, of course, the Kremlin strongly denies these operations. In the case of Maxim Kuzminov, drugs and alcohol were the cause of his death, according to the official version of Russian media.