Moscow hired gunmen to murder Russian defector, Spanish intel says

Spanish intelligence services accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the murder of Maksim Kuzminov, the Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine last year.

Kuzminov, who was reportedly living in Spain under a false identity, was found dead in the Spanish town of Villajoyosa, near Alicante, on Feb. 13. Police said attackers shot the former pilot six times before running him over with a car, Spanish media reported.

Sources in Spanish intelligence services told Spanish outlet El País that it will be hard to directly link the murder to one of Russia’s agencies, but they believe Moscow hired hitmen from outside Spain to carry out the assassination.

According to the outlet’s sources, Spanish intelligence services did not know that Kuzminov was in Spain, as they were not informed of his arrival. Earlier this week, government spokesperson Pilar Alegría did not answer questions on whether Kuzminov was under Spanish police protection, saying the case was “under investigation.”

Kuzminov defected from Russia in August 2023, flying his Mi-8 helicopter into Ukraine from the front line and surrendering to authorities. Ukraine reportedly paid him the hryvnia equivalent of $500,000 as a reward for defecting.

Diplomatic sources told El País that Spain will deliver a “forceful response” if authorities confirm the Kremlin’s involvement.

Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, told Russian state-run news agency TASS that Kuzminov was a “traitor and criminal” who “became a moral corpse at the very moment when he was planning his dirty and terrible crime.”