Spaniards safe:

Moscow had defectors killed by contract killers

The body of pilot Maxim Kuzminov was found in a garage. The dead man had several gunshot wounds.(Bild: REUTERS)

According to a report in the newspaper "El País", a suspected Russian defector shot dead in Spain was killed by hired assassins on behalf of the Kremlin. The murderers most likely came from abroad and had already left the country, the newspaper wrote on Thursday, citing Spanish intelligence circles.

The body with several gunshot wounds was found on Tuesday last week in an underground garage of an apartment building in the town of Villajoyosa near Alicante on the Mediterranean. The burnt-out getaway car of the perpetrator(s) was found nearby shortly afterwards.

Did the secret service order the killing?
The victim was the Russian helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who had defected to the Ukrainian troops with his plane last August, the newspaper wrote. State television in Moscow reported in the fall that the Russian secret service had received the order to kill the "traitor to the fatherland".

This burnt-out car is said to have served as a getaway car in the Maxim Kuzminov murder case. The perpetrator or perpetrators have probably left the country in the meantime.(Bild: REUTERS)

The Spanish authorities have not yet officially confirmed the identity of the deceased. In response to a query about the article on Thursday, the Ministry of the Interior in Madrid merely emphasized that the investigation was ongoing. In diplomatic circles in Madrid, however, the case is considered "extremely serious", the newspaper wrote. If Moscow's authorship of the crime is confirmed, Spain will give a "robust response".

Schadenfreude from Russia
Although the Russian government has not claimed responsibility for the attack, a Russian intelligence service acknowledged the news of the death with glee. "This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the moment when he was planning his dirty and terrible crime," said Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian foreign intelligence service SWR, according to the state news agency Tass.

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Kiev, however, has verified the man's death. "We can confirm this fact," said Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence service, to public television on Monday. Olexiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security Council, explained that Kiev had suggested that the pilot stay in the country. "He would have been safe here in any case." The Russian secret service would not have had such an easy game in Ukraine as it did in Spain.

Did the killer live in the same apartment complex?
Spanish government spokeswoman María Pilar Alegría said in an initial statement on the murder on Tuesday: "This case is under investigation, so we cannot provide any information at this time." It was necessary to "let the (police unit) Guardia Civil do their work and await the results of the investigation".

"El País" wrote that many Russians and Ukrainians lived in the residential complex in Villajoyosa where the man living under a false Ukrainian identity was shot. Hiding there as a defector was risky because the Russian secret services often used compatriots as sources of information, the newspaper wrote, citing intelligence circles. In addition, Moscow's services sometimes worked together with local gangs. Kuzminov had also been quite careless. He had called his former girlfriend in Russia and invited her to visit him in Spain.

Landed in Ukraine with a helicopter
The pilot had flown from Russia to Ukraine in a fully equipped Mi-8 army helicopter in August last year. After landing at a Ukrainian military airfield, the two other crew members who were not involved in the operation were shot dead while fleeing, according to Ukrainian sources. The Russian had received the equivalent of over 460,000 euros from Kiev for the crime.