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The lads who killed Maksim Kuzminov wished to ship a message. This was apparent to investigators in Spain even earlier than they found who he was. Not solely did the killers shoot him six occasions in a parking storage in southern Spain, they ran over his physique with their automobile.
Additionally they left an vital clue to their id, based on investigators: shell casings from 9-millimeter Makarov rounds, a regular ammunition of the previous Communist bloc.
“It was a transparent message,” stated a senior official from Guardia Civil, the Spanish police power overseeing the investigation into the killing. “I’ll discover you, I’ll kill you, I’ll run you over and humiliate you.”
Mr. Kuzminov defected from Russia to Ukraine final summer season, flying his Mi-8 army helicopter into Ukrainian territory and handing the plane together with a cache of secret paperwork to Ukrainian intelligence operatives. In doing so, he dedicated the one offense President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has stated many times he won’t ever forgive: treachery.
His killing within the seaside resort city of Villajoyosa final month has raised fears that Russia’s European spy networks proceed to function and are concentrating on enemies of the Kremlin, regardless of concerted efforts to dismantle them after Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Russia’s intelligence companies have been placed on a warfare footing and begun working at a stage of aggressiveness at house and overseas paying homage to the Stalin period, stated Andrei Soldatov, an writer and skilled on Russia’s army and safety companies.
“It’s not about typical espionage anymore,” he stated. “It’s about operations — and these operations may embody assassinations.”
In Spain, Mr. Kuzminov lived “an indiscreet life,” the senior Guardia Civil official stated. He went to bars widespread with Russian and Ukrainian clientele, burning by the cash he had obtained from the Ukrainian state. He drove round Villajoyosa in a black Mercedes S-Class.
Precisely how the killers discovered him has not been established, although two senior Ukrainian officers stated he had reached out to a former girlfriend, nonetheless in Russia, and invited her to come back see him in Spain.
“This was a grave mistake,” one of many officers stated.
Senior police officers talking on the situation of anonymity stated the killing bore hallmarks of comparable assaults linked to the Kremlin, together with the assassination of a former Chechen insurgent commander in Berlin in 2019 and the poisoning of the previous Russian army intelligence operative Sergei V. Skripal in Salisbury, England, in 2018. Mr. Skripal survived.
The 2 hooded killers who appeared on surveillance digital camera footage from the parking storage of Mr. Kuzminov’s residence advanced have been clearly professionals who carried out their mission and shortly disappeared, police officers stated.
“It isn’t widespread right here in Spain for somebody to be shot with plenty of ammunition,” stated Chief Pepe Álvarez of the Villajoyosa Police Division. “These are indications that time to organized crime, to a felony group, to professionals.”
Whereas no proof of direct Kremlin involvement has emerged, Russia had made no secret of its need to see Mr. Kuzminov lifeless. Weeks after his defection, the Kremlin’s signature Sunday night information program ran a phase quoting fellow pilots and commandos from Russia’s army intelligence service vowing revenge.
“We’ll discover this particular person and punish him, with all of the severity of our nation’s legal guidelines, for treason and for betraying his brothers,” stated certainly one of commandos, who was not recognized. “We discover everybody ultimately. Our arms are lengthy.”
The defection of Mr. Kuzminov was a coup for Ukraine, orchestrated by a covert unit within the HUR, Ukraine’s army’s intelligence arm. The unit focuses on recruiting Russian fighters and working brokers on Russian territory to hold out sabotage missions. Some troopers from the unit have obtained specialised coaching from the C.I.A. on working in hostile environments.
Whereas the unit had been capable of persuade particular person Russians and generally small teams of troopers to defect, Mr. Kuzminov’s daring flight — and the excessive worth of what he delivered — was unprecedented, stated a senior Ukrainian official with data of the operation.
The success of Ukraine’s efforts to recruit defectors is tough to quantify. 1000’s of Russian residents have joined volunteer items combating with the Ukrainian army and at occasions crossed into Russian territory for lightning raids on border outposts. It doesn’t seem, nonetheless, that they’ve shifted the steadiness of energy in any important means.
Mr. Kuzminov stated in interviews that he turned disillusioned after studying postings by Ukrainians on the web.
“I understood who was on the facet of excellent and who was on the facet of reality,” he stated in an interview with a Ukrainian blogger.
Within the early night of Aug. 9, 2023, Mr. Kuzminov took off in a army helicopter from an airfield within the Kursk area in western Russia for what was presupposed to be a easy cargo supply to a different base within the nation. With him within the cockpit have been a technician named Nikita Kiryanov and a navigator, Khushbakht Tursunov. Neither soldier appeared to pay attention to Mr. Kuzminov’s plans.
Shortly after takeoff, Mr. Kuzminov turned off the helicopter’s radio communications tools and dove to an altitude of just below 20 ft to evade radar. Then he crossed into Ukraine.
In interviews with Ukrainian information media, Mr. Kuzminov was coy about what occurred subsequent. He stated solely that he had landed the helicopter at a prearranged rendezvous level within the Kharkiv area, simply over 10 miles from the border, the place he was met by HUR commandos.
“All the things went properly,” he stated in a single interview.
The truth is extra difficult. When he crossed into the nation, Mr. Kuzminov stunned a gaggle of Ukrainian fighters, who opened fireplace, based on one other senior Ukrainian official. Within the confusion, Mr. Kuzminov was shot within the leg.
What occurred to his crewmates is much less clear. A Russian tv report about them, citing a health worker, claimed that the 2 had been shot and killed at shut vary and advised that Mr. Kuzminov had killed them earlier than touchdown. The senior Ukrainian official concerned within the operation stated this was not true.
“Our troopers shot them,” the official stated. “In any other case they’d have killed Kuzminov and will have escaped in that helicopter.”
In interviews, Mr. Kuzminov stated his crewmates have been unarmed however by no means defined how they died.
The HUR clearly thought of the mission a serious success. Shortly afterward, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s army intelligence chief, introduced that the operation would give confidence to different Russian troopers who have been contemplating defection. The intelligence company even produced a documentary movie in regards to the operation to showcase its triumph.
Mr. Kuzminov went on a media tour, holding a information convention, giving interviews denouncing Russia’s warfare and calling on others to observe his instance.
“You gained’t remorse it,” he stated within the documentary. “You’ll be taken care of for the remainder of your life.”
The Ukrainian authorities paid Mr. Kuzminov $500,000 and offered him a Ukrainian passport and a pretend title: Ihor Shevchenko. Additionally they provided him an opportunity to hitch them in combating Russia.
As a substitute, Mr. Kuzminov left Ukraine in October and drove to Villajoyosa, a small city on the Mediterranean coast widespread with British and Jap European vacationers. There, he settled on the ninth ground of a modest residence constructing a couple of 10-minute stroll from the seashore.
It was a curious alternative for somebody so explicitly focused by the Russian authorities for liquidation. The area is a well known base of operation for Russian organized crime figures, a few of whom preserve ties to the nation’s intelligence companies, the Spanish authorities say.
In 2020, the Spanish police arrested greater than 20 individuals linked to Russian felony teams, a few of whom have been working out of Alicante, in the identical province as Villajoyosa. The individuals have been charged with laundering hundreds of thousands of {dollars} acquired by drug and human trafficking, extortion and contract killings, the Spanish authorities stated.
One other Russian army defector who has settled in Spain and spoke on the situation of anonymity for security causes known as the area the place Mr. Kuzminov settled “a pink zone” full of Russian brokers. “I’ll by no means go there,” he stated.
On the morning of Feb. 13, a white Hyundai Tucson entered the storage below Mr. Kuzminov’s residence constructing and parked in an empty spot between the elevators utilized by residents and the ramp resulting in the road. Two males waited there for a number of hours, based on the senior Guardia Civil official.
Round 4:20 p.m., Mr. Kuzminov drove into the storage, parked and started strolling towards the elevators. As he handed in entrance of the white Hyundai, the 2 assailants emerged, known as out to him and opened fireplace. Although he was struck by six bullets, most of them within the torso, Mr. Kuzminov managed to dash a brief distance earlier than collapsing on the ramp.
The 2 killers acquired again into the automobile and ran over Mr. Kuzminov’s physique on their means out. The car was discovered a couple of miles away, burned with the assistance of what investigators consider was a particular accelerant. It took specialists every week to establish the make and mannequin of the automobile and set up that it had been stolen — two days earlier than the killing — in Murcia, a city about an hour away.
A particular unit within the Guardia Civil is finishing up the investigation below strict secrecy guidelines. The authorities haven’t publicly confirmed that Mr. Kuzminov was the particular person killed. They’ve struggled to succeed in officers in Ukraine who may assist them.
However among the many group of Russian and Ukrainian expatriates dwelling in Villajoyosa, there was no query of who was behind the loss of life.
“Everybody thinks the companies took him out,” stated Ivan, 31, who fled his house metropolis, Kherson, Ukraine, in the beginning of the warfare. “They’re in every single place.”
Spain’s annual report on nationwide safety threats, revealed this month, stated Russia had revamped its intelligence operations within the nation after the expulsion of 27 Russian diplomats over the warfare in Ukraine. Although fewer in quantity, the report stated, Russian spies continued to hunt out methods to “destabilize Spain’s help for NATO.”
Previously, Russian officers have twisted themselves into knots making an attempt to obfuscate the Kremlin’s connection to numerous assassinations round Europe, typically within the face of clear proof of state involvement. Mr. Kuzminov’s case is totally different. Senior Russian officers spoke of his loss of life with barely disguised glee.
“This traitor and felony turned an ethical corpse the second he deliberate his soiled and horrible crime,” stated Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s overseas intelligence service.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, the previous Russian president who’s now the deputy chairman of the nation’s safety council, stated, “A canine will get a canine’s loss of life.”
In distinction with the good fanfare that accompanied Mr. Kuzminov’s defection, the Ukrainian authorities have been principally quiet in regards to the killing. Senior officers fear that it may dissuade others from following his instance.
“Who will cooperate with us after this?” stated one of many senior officers.
“Russia will intensively unfold propaganda — they’re already doing it — that they are going to discover all traitors,” he stated. “It is a hidden message to different residents of Russia, particularly army personnel, that we are going to discover you should you betray us.”
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