A Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine in August with a Mi-8 helicopter was discovered shot to death in Spain last week, according to Ukrainian and Spanish media sources.
Maksym Kuzminov’s death was verified to the Kyiv Post by a military intelligence representative for Ukraine, but no other information was given. The publication stated that Kuzminov was discovered dead in an underground parking lot in southern Spain, close to Alicante, with at least five gunshot wounds.
According to La Informacion, a Spanish daily, two suspects fled the scene in a car that was later discovered to be burning.
Kuzminov had been residing in Spain under a false identity and a Ukrainian passport when his body was discovered on February 13, according to Reuters and Spanish news agency EFE. A former captain in the Russian 319th Separate Helicopter Regiment, he defected to Ukraine in August when he brought a Russian Mi-8 AMTSh down on a Kharkiv air base, saying that he did not want to commit war crimes.
According to a Ukrainian statute encouraging Russian troops to turn up military hardware, Kuzminov, who also carried components of a stolen fighter plane with him when he defected, received a $500,000 prize.
In September, Kuzminov, who was 28 years old at the time, had called on his Russian colleagues to betray their country, promising that they would live a better life in Ukraine.
