According to Russia, Russian helicopter pilot who defected to Ukraine was a “moral corpse”

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The Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov flew to Ukraine in August 2023 with a fully equipped Mi-8 army helicopter

Photo: EPA

The Russian foreign secret service SWR has commented on the helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who was found shot dead in Spain and who defected to Ukraine. The Russian pilot was a "moral corpse" when he planned his crime, said SWR director Sergei Naryshkin, according to Russian news agencies. He declined to comment further on the case.

According to reports in Spanish and Ukrainian media, the pilot was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in an underground car park in the southern Spanish town of Villajoyosa near Alicante last week.

Upon request, the Spanish Interior Ministry told SPIEGEL that a dead person with multiple gunshot wounds was actually found last Tuesday in Villajoyosa, a city in the province of Alicante. In the course of the investigation, all that has been discovered so far is that the person may have been registered under a false identity. Everything else is still being checked.

The Spanish news agency EFE reported on Monday that investigative sources had confirmed that it was the Russian helicopter pilot. The papers that the dead man had with him are said to have been false.

Kiev reportedly paid 460,000 euros for his defection

The pilot flew from Russia to Ukraine in August last year with a fully equipped Mi-8 army helicopter. After landing at a Ukrainian military airfield, the other two crew members were shot while trying to escape, according to Ukrainian sources. The Russian received the equivalent of over 460,000 euros from Kiev for the crime. State television in Moscow reported in the fall that the Russian secret service had received the order to kill the man who was considered a traitor.

Ukraine has been fending off a Russian invasion for almost two years. In April 2022, Kiev set rewards for functional Russian military equipment handed over to Ukraine. The Ukrainian state promises Russian defectors the equivalent of over 920,000 euros as the maximum reward for a fighter aircraft.

czl/Reuters