Maksym Kuzminov, a 28-year-old Russian helicopter pilot who flew to Ukraine in August and later moved to Spain, was shot five times while less than 500 feet from a local police station, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In February, Kuzminov was slain in the little coastal town of Villajoyosa, where he was living under a false identity.
The Journal spoke with Kuzminov’s neighbors, witnesses, and authorities and published new details about the Russian pilot’s defection last year and death on February 13.
According to the article, Kuzminov’s body was discovered less than 500 feet from a police station, so officials could have arrived in minutes. However, witnesses told the newspaper that Kuzminov had most certainly died by that point.
“When I called the emergency phone number, I already knew that the man was dead,” the building manager of Kuzminov’s apartment told The Journal.
According to the report, a medic discovered five small-caliber rounds, one of which squarely pierced Kuzminov’s heart, demonstrating the perpetrator’s accuracy in killing him.
A suspect has not been named, but an official working on the case told The Journal that investigators believe the Kremlin was involved in the pilot’s death.
Kuzminov’s fate was widely regarded as part of a succession of strange Russian fatalities that have raised concerns about the Kremlin’s efforts to eliminate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adversaries.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary force that launched a mutiny against Russian military leadership, was killed in an August jet crash near a Moscow airport.
Western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer told The Journal last year that Putin’s close ally, Nikolai Patrushev, ordered his killing.
Earlier in February, Alexey Navalny, one of Putin’s most vociferous political opponents, was discovered dead in an Arctic jail camp where he was serving a 19-year term. Although a medical investigation stated that Navalny died of natural causes, many people, including Navalny’s family and the Biden administration, believe foul play was involved.
“Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” President Joe Biden said at a press conference on February 16.
Following rumors of Kuzminov’s death, Moscow’s foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, attempted to defend the Russian pilot’s fate.
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” Naryshkin told Russia’s state news agency TASS approximately a week after Kuzminov died.
