A RUSSIAN chopper pilot who defected to Ukraine was allegedly tracked down by a pro-Putin hit squad who left him “riddled with bullets”.
Captain Maxim Kuzminov, 28, was shot dead in Spain on February 13 months after Moscow blasted him as a traitor and promised to liquidate him.
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On Monday, authorities revealed that the body found in a garage in the coastal town of Villajoyosa in Alicante, near to Benidorm, belonged to that of the Russian pilot.
Spanish detectives said they are treating the murder as a “settling of scores”, EFE reported, given that the victim was shot six times and then run over by a vehicle used by the killers.
Kuzminov was likely to be high on Putin’s hit list after making headlines for voluntarily landing a £15million Russian Mi-8 at a military airfield in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region last August.
The audacious feat saw him slammed across Russian as a “traitor to the Motherland”.
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Investigators now believe the killing was carried out by a group of “professionals” due to the alleged skill and precision of the shooting, according to EL ESPAÑOL.
Sources close to the investigation told the outlet that the assassins had been monitoring his daily routine in the town where he was understood to have been hiding under a false identity since his escape to Ukraine.
Alicante’s Civil Guard reportedly believe his killers managed to control the cameras inside the garage where he was killed, suggesting a high level of professionalisation.
A fake ID was found on his body of a Ukrainian man aged 33, likely the alias he used fearing reprisals from Putin’s vengeful intelligence services.
Russia’s foreign intelligence chief announced today that Kuzminov became a “moral corpse” as soon as he planned his trip to Ukraine.
“In Russia it is customary to speak either good of the dead or nothing at all,” Sergei Naryshkin, the director of SVR said when asked about Kuzminov.
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment when he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” he added.
A Kremlin-obedient outlet Mash reported that a witness had seen the body of Kuzminov “riddled with bullets”.
Kuzminov’s defection to Ukraine was taunted as a major propaganda coup for Ukraine last September.
The young pilot was said to have been promised a £400,000 reward for surrendering to Ukraine with Russian military kit.
Ukraine’s military intelligence later confirmed it had courted him and then asked Kuzimov to appeal to other Russian pilots to follow his lead.
Kyiv broadcast a documentary on his audacious flight and surrender in which Kuzminov accused Putin of committing “genocide” in Ukraine.
He said: “I am very offended by what is happening now (in Ukraine). Murder, tears, blood. Just people killing each other.
“What is happening now is just genocide of the Ukrainian people, both Ukrainian and Russian.”
Russian state media sensationally claimed Kuzminov shot and killed two of his crewmates who did not support him before he touched down in Ukraine.
However, Ukraine’s spy chief Kyrylo Budanov said they were killed when they tried to escape after the chopper landed.
Anonymous Spetsnaz special force officers from Russia’s GRU military were shown on state TV making it clear an order had been given to get rid of Kuzminov.
“The order (to kill Captain Kuzminov) was received, its execution is a matter of time,” the presenter said.
One Spetsnaz officer was filmed saying: “We’ll find the man and punish him for betraying his brothers to the fullest extent of our country’s law.
“Of course, we’ll find him. We’ll reach out to anyone, we have long arms.”
A second officer said: “He will not live until the court hearings. We cannot let this go. We’ll punish him no matter what.”
The investigation is ongoing and Kuzminov’s body is now undergoing forensic examination to establish the cause of death.
The Civil Guard is also investigating whether a vehicle that was set on fire in the nearby town of El Campello was the one being used by the killers to flee.
Kuzminov’s wife and children are believed to be in Ukraine.
Russia has a long and shameless track record of attempting to assassinate so-called “traitors” on foreign soil.
In the UK, Russian agents murdered defected spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, and attempted to poison the double agent Sergei Skripal with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in 2018.
News of Kuzminov’s death comes only days after Vladimir Putin’s nemesis Alexei Navalny was allegedly beaten to death in a penal colony.
Russia claims that the opposition leader died of “sudden death syndrome” and refuses to release his body which was reportedly found covered in bruises.
Now, fears are growing for a Russo-British jailed Putin critic who is believed to be “next” on Putin’s hit list, an expert told The Sun.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, who was sentenced to 25 years last April in a hellhole Siberian prison is said to be “very ill” and a “prime target” for the despot.
His wife fears he will suffer the same fate as Navalny, whose death is widely suspected to have been ordered by Putin as a means to finally silence his rebellious enemy.
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