Sign up for our breaking news emails to get real-time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox for free
Sign up for free breaking news emails
A Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine in an Mi-8 helicopter last year has been found dead in an underground garage in Spain, Ukrainian officials said.
The body of pilot Maxim Kuzminov was found on February 13 in the coastal town of Villajoyosa in Alicante, southern Spain, with multiple gunshot wounds, Ukrainian and Spanish media reported on Monday.
Kuzminov defected to Ukraine in August last year, arriving there on a Russian Mi-8 helicopter. He had a Ukrainian passport and was living in Spain under a different name and identity, the report added.
His defection was seen as a major coup for Kiev, the result of a six-month intelligence operation. Ukrainian authorities have admitted to luring him into exile and arranging for his Mi-8 to land in Kharkov.
“He decided not to stay here but to move to Spain.” [in Ukraine].As far as we know, he invited his ex-girlfriend to his house and was later found shot dead,” Ukrainian news website ukrainska pravda It was reported on Monday, citing Ukrainian sources.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said Kuzminov died in Spain, but did not specify the cause of death. Spanish police authorities have not confirmed the identity of the victim, but said the body of a gunshot victim was found in the town.
A source from Spain’s Guardia civilian police said the victim may have been living under a false identity.
Investigators were searching for two suspects who were believed to have fled in a car that was later found burned and abandoned in a nearby town, Spanish media reported. La Informacion newspaper.
Reports of Kuzminov’s death came after Alexei Navalny, Russia’s main opposition leader and fierce critic of the Kremlin, was found dead in an Arctic prison.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia, has accused Vladimir Putin of poisoning her husband with Novichok and hiding his body until traces of the nerve agent could no longer be detected.