Maxim Kuzminov He graduated from the Higher Military Aviation Pilot School in Syzran, the third largest city in Samara Oblast, Russia. Like the rest of the soldiers, he had one objective, one goal and one duty: to serve his country. Six … A few months after Putin’s army invaded Ukraine, he was posted to Mariupol and then Berdyansk. He flew a Mi-8, a transport helicopter, which did not take part in any combat actions, but still wanted to escape the horror. Operation “Syntysia” developed its escape plan by passing through Ukraine and then hiding in Spain, more precisely in Villajoyosa, Alicante, under the name of Igor Shevchenko, his false name. There he was shot dead by hitmen who, almost two years later, no one has found.
As he progressed ABCthe head of station number 3 of the Civil and Investigation Section of the Villajoyosa District Court this week decreed the provisional classification, due to the lack of a known perpetrator, of the case in which she was investigating the assassination of the deserter pilot from the Russian Army. An expected decision, despite the suspicions put forward by this newspaper which pointed towards a mission of hired killers by the Kremlin intelligence services, since the report submitted to the magistrate by the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard details that “It was not possible to clarify the authorship of the material or intellectual shooting against the victim.
The judicial body in office that day opened a preliminary procedure to investigate the events, initially classified as a crime of homicide or murder, and decreed the secrecy of the procedure to protect the investigation. However, the numerous investigative measures carried out by the homicide group of the Organic Unit of the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard did not make it possible to direct the trial against one or more persons determined as intellectual or material perpetrators of the crime.
“After analyzing the competing circumstances and taking into account the conditions which must be met for the commission of the criminal offense, this judge may conclude that there is not enough evidence to attribute criminal responsibility to a specific person as author, accomplice or accomplice of the facts which gave rise to the formation of this case”, specifies the instructor in an order dated last September.
In this way, the Spanish justice system was unable to confirm the suspicions that existed among investigators that the Russian military intelligence services, the GRU, were behind the crime using highly professional hitmen. In fact, the head of Russian intelligence, Sergei Narishkin, even called Kuzminov a “moral corpse” and was described in his home country as “traitor and criminal”.
So much so that Rybar, the Russian pro-military Telegram channel with the largest number of subscribers in the world, published a comic strip telling a sort of re-enactment of Kuzminov’s cold-blooded crime. 31 pages relating the plan to assassinate the “traitor” and the recklessness which led to his discovery on the coast of Alicante. “It’s him.” They get out of the car and say, “Hey, trash. This is for the boys,” before shooting him in the back and running away, but not before making sure he was dead. Then the comic ends with the vehicle being used on fire and a conversation between the two hitmen as they contemplate the fire burning down the car.
Kuzminov’s carelessness
This story is full of nuances and unrelated points that remain unknown today. For example, the exclusive that the murder in Alicante was actually the defecting Russian pilot was published by the Italian digital newspaper. “The Correspondent”a medium shrouded in mystery due to its anonymous feeling. None of his information is signed, but he still had enough credibility with the Russian state agency Tass to revive the news with his quote, around the world.
As published then ABCit was surprising that this newspaper -fil-Russe-, unknown to the vast majority of Italians, was ahead of all the media in publishing the real name of the victim. He cited the Civil Guard as a source and presented the exclusive as if it were a conviction against a criminal and not the murder of a pilot who had publicly denounced Putin’s war in Ukraine: “Traitors don’t live long.”
Urbanization where the Russian deserter pilot lived in Villajoyosa, Alicante
What is beyond doubt is that the assassination was the work of professionals, who carefully studied their objective until deciding the best moment to kill him without fail. At 5:30 p.m., in front of the garage door of the apartments where Kouzminov was hiding in Villajoyosa, where Russian and Ukrainian compatriots also lived. He tried to escape, but he couldn’t escape, they riddled him with bullets and fled in a car that was deliberately set on fire in the town of El Campello.
As for how these hitmen were able to reach the Russian deserter, it is worth focusing on the notable number of recklessness what he had been doing since his arrival in Alicante, where it was common for him to consume drugs, resort to escort services and even participate in public altercations in a residential area where a large number of compatriots live. In addition, he regularly telephoned his country, in particular his girlfriend, whom he invited to travel and discover his new life. In the latest statements from the Spanish government on this subject, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, stressed that the deserter “came to Spain freely” and that the executive of Pedro Sánchez was not aware of his alleged presence on the national territory.
Kuzminov’s escape
The first time Ukrainians heard the name Kuzminov was on September 3, 2023, in a documentary broadcast on national television under the title “Russian pilots down”. In the recording he revealed how the escape and landing of his plane, worth almost nine million euros, was planned.
“If you do what I did, that kind of thing, you won’t regret it at all. “You will have absolutely everything for the rest of your life,” says Kuzminov, who provided valuable information about the Russian army’s aviation, its communications system and its airfield network. This defection was the result of a long HUR operation to bring the Mi-8 helicopter and its pilot to Ukraine.
According to the man who was later murdered, his parents supported his plan to desert and joined him in Ukraine, where he received 500,000 dollars in hryvniathe local currency, as well as the facilities to hide in Alicante, where he would ultimately be murdered, according to Spanish justice, it is not known by whom or why.
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