Russian Pilot Who Defected to Ukraine Found Dead in Spain
Maksim Kuzminov was a fierce critic of the war in Ukraine, and called on his fellow Russian soldiers to join him in defecting.
A Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine from his home country has been found shot to death in Spain, according to Ukraine’s intelligence community.
Maksim Kuzminov — who was 28 at the time of his defection — became famous in August 2023 when he flew a Russian military helicopter into Ukraine to surrender himself to authorities, where he was promptly celebrated and awarded $500,00 by the Ukrainian government.
On Monday, it was reported that Kuzminov was found dead in his apartment on February 13 in Spain, where he had been living, according to Ukrainska Pravda. A burned-out car was found near the apartment, which Ukraine authorities said was used by Kuzminov’s killer (or killers) to reach him.
When he defected in August, Kuzminov was piloting a helicopter that was transporting parts for a number of Russian fighter jets.
In September, Kuzminov said in an interview that other Russians should leave the military and defect to Ukraine. “If you do what I did, this kind of thing, you will not regret it at all,” he told a documentary crew in Ukraine, according to the Kyiv Independent. “You will be provided for the rest of your life with absolutely everything. You will be offered work everywhere, whatever you want to do. You will just discover for yourself the world of colors.”
Kuzminov also said that President Putin’s pretense for the war — that Ukrainian fascists needed to be deposed — was a lie and that Ukraine was bound to win the war eventually.
“What is happening now is simply the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Both Ukrainian and Russian,” Kuzminov said. “The basis of my action is not to contribute to these crimes. Ukraine will definitely win this war simply because the people have rallied very much… No one wants this war. When Ukraine wins is only a matter of time.”
He is not the first critic of Russia’s war against Ukraine to suffer an untimely death. The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who nearly launched a coup against the Russian president, died in a plane crash last year.
Other Putin critics have died in similar ways as Kuzminov. A Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, was shot in her apartment building in 2006 after writing a book that decried Mr. Putin’s “cynicism,” “racism,” and “lies.”
A Russian politician who once rivaled Mr. Putin for the presidency, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed in 2015 on a Moscow bridge just one day before he was due to lead an anti-Putin rally.
