Could the mystery of the assassination of a Russian on the Spanish Riviera be clarified somewhat?
The bullet-riddled body of Maxim Kouzminov, a Russian helicopter pilot who fled to Ukraine in August 2023, was discovered on February 13 in Villajoyosa, a seaside resort near the city of Alicante, Spain.
Since then, the Spanish authorities have officially remained very cautious about this potentially very sensitive matter, even refusing to confirm the identity of the victim.
But the Spanish intelligence services are sure: this assassination is the work of Russian agents, they affirm to the Spanish daily El Pais, in an article published Thursday February 22.
Priority target for the Kremlin
For their part, police officers confirmed to the New York Times that the victim was indeed Maxim Kuzminov and Russia was quick to rejoice at the death of such a “traitor”.
“This criminal had become a corpse emptied of all moral sense from the moment he committed his infamous misdeed,” insisted Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russian foreign intelligence, just after the announcement of the discovery of the corpse in Villajoyosa.
It must be said that the desertion of Maxime Kouzminov had been presented as one of the most important war gains of Ukrainian intelligence.
kyiv even produced a nearly two-hour documentary devoted to the operation which resulted in the “first significant defection of a Russian pilot since the start of the war”, according to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian spies even boasted of having obtained from the Russian pilot crucial information on Russian battle plans and details of their arsenal in addition to the helicopter he was kind enough to leave with them.
In exchange, Maxime Kouzminov obtained 500,000 dollars.
Also read “All you need”: how Ukraine is trying to encourage Russian desertions
But in Vladimir Putin's eyes, he is not just a traitor.
During the operation, the two Russian co-pilots who accompanied Maxime Kouzminov without suspecting anything were shot dead by Ukrainian agents during an exchange of gunfire.
For the master of the Kremlin, the deserter is therefore also responsible for the death of two pilots who, in the food chain of Russian soldiers, are much more valuable than simple fighters.
The government therefore had “more than one reason to want to eliminate Maxime Kouzminov to send a message”, assures Stephen Hall, specialist in Russia at the University of Bath.
It’s a way of making all candidates for desertion understand “that the price to pay to receive the $500,000 is to be hunted down and killed wherever you are,” adds Jeff Hawn, Russia specialist. at the London School of Economics.
Phone call to his ex-girlfriend
Hunting “peepholes” is also a politically promising occupation in this pre-presidential election period in Russia.
“Since the death of Yevgeni Prigozhin and the more recent death of Alexeï Navalny - both perceived as traitors by Vladimir Putin - the Russian president's entourage has been able to say that bringing the body of another 'traitor “could allow you to be seen well by the person who will probably be re-elected,” estimates Jeff Hawn.
On the other hand, Russia thus makes it known that the war and the avalanche of international sanctions which aim to isolate the country “do not seem to have too much affected the networks of agents that Moscow has for its operations abroad”, underlines Jenny Mathers, political scientist and Russian intelligence specialist at Aberystwyth University in Wales.
In fact, no one was supposed to know where Maxim Kouzminov was.
The latest news was that Ukraine had advised him not to leave the country to minimize the risk of being assassinated.
Russia's ability to track its targets abroad “is necessarily less good than before the start of the major offensive of 2022, if only because the movements of Russian citizens are more closely monitored”, estimates Jenny Mathers .
In addition, the Spanish authorities expelled the twenty or so agents of the SVR (Russian foreign intelligence) and the GRU (military intelligence) of whose existence they knew.
But “we cannot say that Maxime Kouzminov took all imaginable measures to ensure his safety,” regrets Jeff Hawn.
His change of identity - he had a Ukrainian passport - did not prove sufficient.
The choice of the Alicante region to start a new life may, for example, be surprising: it is in this city that the largest contingent of Russian expatriates in Spain is concentrated, underlines El Pais.
Among the 17,500 compatriots there, there was perhaps one who recognized the “traitor” that Moscow was looking for.
He also called his ex-girlfriend, who remained in Russia, to invite her to join him.
“There is no doubt that the communications of everyone he knew in Russia was monitored,” said Jeff Hawn.
FSB, GRU or SVR?
Once found, it was still necessary to succeed in eliminating the person who had tried to hide.
The Spanish intelligence services are still hesitating between responsibility for the SVR, the GRU or the FSB, according to El Pais.
The first two are generally the agencies that deal with this type of operation, but “the FSB began to be more and more involved in operations abroad”, recognizes Stephen Hall.
The FSB was notably accused of having poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in England in 2006.
The GRU track, however, remains the most obvious, notes Jenny Mathers.
If only because “Maxime Kouzminov was a military pilot, and his case therefore falls under military intelligence,” summarizes this expert.
And then the GRU also has experience in this area.
It was his military spies who were suspected of having poisoned former double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018 in England.
Also read: The GRU, Putin's not-so-secret weapon
But this time no poison.
Maxime Kouzminov was killed by twelve bullets, which first put the Spanish authorities on the trail of a settling of scores in the world of organized crime, assures El Pais.
It is also “entirely possible that the Russian intelligence services called on local mafiosi to carry out the contract,” notes Stephen Hall.
“This would not be surprising because the Putin system is based in part on the relationship between the state and organized crime, which can be responsible for doing the dirty work,” adds Jenny Mathers.
On the trail of an “untouchable” mafioso
A thesis which was also taken up by the Russian Telegram account VChK-OGPU, specializing in revelations on the small world of Russian oligarchs and organized crime and “which is generally very well informed”, assures Stephen Hall.
“One of the hypotheses is that it is a coup by the Bratsk mafia group [in the Irkutsk region in Siberia, Editor's note] and its boss Vladimir Tyurin”, writes this anonymous Telegram account which ensures that two members of this gang reportedly left Spain after the murder.
The Bratsk group and Vladimir Tyurin were one of the most powerful Russian mafias of the 1990s. Vladimir Tyurin, who today presents himself as a respectable businessman, was placed in 2017 by Washington on the list of sanctioned individuals.
The United States considers him one of the main “thieves in the law”, a term which describes the Russian mafia elite.
He would even be “one of the rare untouchable 'thief in the law' in Russia”, we can read on the VChK-OGPU account thread.
The man was already suspected of having assassinated exiled Russian politician Denis Voronenkov in kyiv in 2017 on behalf of the Russian secret services.
At the end of the 1990s, he was also one of the main people responsible for the development of the presence of the Russian mafia… in Spain.
For the moment, there is nothing to directly link Vladimir Tyuring or one of the Russian intelligence agencies to the murder of Maxim Kuzminov.
But the Spanish authorities have indicated that if they found concrete proof of Moscow's involvement in this killing, Madrid would “respond in the most vigorous way possible”.
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