He escaped by flying a Russian helicopter to Ukraine. He was found dead in Spain.

Maxim Kuzminov was shot dead in a Spanish coastal town whose name means “joyful village.”

The 28-year-old Russian made headlines last year when he left Russia and flew to Ukraine in a helicopter. He made headlines again in February when his body was found in a parking garage in Villajoyosa, a resort town on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

Who was the Russian defector Maxim Kuzminov?

Kuzminov was a Russian military helicopter pilot until he was recruited online by Ukrainian intelligence officers. On August 9, 2023, he flew a helicopter under the radar so that he was not detected as he crossed the front from Russia into Ukraine. He then handed over the helicopter, sensitive military equipment and top-secret Russian intelligence to the Ukrainian military.

“What is happening now is simply a genocide of the Ukrainian people, both Ukrainian and Russian people,” Kuzminov said in an interview on Ukrainian television after his defection. “I did it because I didn’t want to be part of these crimes. I know exactly how this will end, Ukraine will definitely win this war because its people are very united.”

Ukraine gave Kuzminov half a million dollars and a new Ukrainian identity. Kuzminov’s Ukrainian handlers warned him not to leave the country because they feared Putin would unleash a Russian hit team on him.

But Kuzminov didn’t listen and headed to Villajoyosa, where he bought an apartment in a high-rise complex. Many of the Spanish city’s year-round residents come from Russia and Ukraine.

Kuzminov did not lead a quiet life in Spain. A neighbor said Kuzminov often drank at a local bar and was heard bragging about who he really was.

The shooting death of Maxim Kuzminov

On February 13, 2024, construction worker Ruben Ferrándiz was cleaning the garage of the high-rise building where Kuzminov lived when he heard a car driving at high speed. Ferrándiz then saw a body lying face up on the sidewalk. He called for help and watched as paramedics and police examined Kuzminov’s bullet-riddled body.

Surveillance cameras recorded the murder. Footage showed two attackers entering the garage and hiding behind tinted glass in the back seat of their car. They waited five hours for Kuzminov to show up at his parking spot and then sprayed him with bullets.

Ferrándiz said he never heard any gunshots – just the sound of the car fleeing. He believes the killers used a silencer.

The assassins fled the scene and burned the getaway car with an industrial accelerator. This would have destroyed any GPS tracking in the car and covered their trail. The remains were discovered on the other side of a tunnel in a location so isolated that the killers would likely have needed help from locals to determine the location.

Kuzminov’s death was celebrated on Russian state television. Former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was blunt when reporters asked about Kuzminov’s death.

“For a dog, the death of a dog,” he said in Russian.

Who killed Maxim Kuzminov?

Michael Weiss, U.S. editor at The Insider, an investigative magazine published by exiled Russian journalists, said he learned that the ammunition used in the shooting was Russian.

“It leads back to Moscow, and we should know that,” said Weiss. “You know, they want to be able to say, ‘You can’t prove it was us, but let’s be honest. You know it was us.’”

Local authorities in Villajoyosa are no longer responsible for investigating Kuzminov’s death. This is now in the hands of the Spanish Civil Guard, the equivalent of the FBI. In this case there is a silence order. 60 Minutes requested interviews with half a dozen local and Spanish federal officials about the Kuzminov case. Nobody would talk.

Authorities have said little publicly about the investigation, other than a dire warning: If it turns out that Russia was behind Kuzminov’s death, Spain will respond forcefully.

But Spain has not yet made anything public.

Weiss believes Spain is not discussing the shooting more publicly because it would cause panic.

“If you’re a tourist, do you want to vacation in Alicante knowing that you might suffer collateral damage from a Russian assassin?” Weiss said.

A source close to the Spanish investigation provided 60 Minutes with photos of men who they said were identified by Spanish authorities as “persons of interest” and were in Spain at the time of Kuzminov’s murder. 60 Minutes has learned that one of the men is a former Russian KGB officer and another, his relative, is a Russian police colonel. It is further evidence that the Russian government may be involved.

Weiss is convinced that Russian intelligence killed Kuzminov.

“I don’t think anyone, certainly not the Ukrainians or Russians, doubts that he was liquidated by Moscow,” Weiss said.

Images of the surface of “Kuzminov”.

In a bizarre twist, Kuzminov appeared to rise from the dead five months after his murder. Over the summer, images emerged on social media showing a man who looked like Kuzminov at an air show.

But 60 Minutes has learned that it was likely a Ukrainian intelligence officer who wore an elaborate disguise, including a mask designed to look almost exactly like the Russian defector. The Ukrainians were likely conducting their own disinformation campaign, trying to beat the Russians at their own game. Their goal was to make the world believe that Kuzminov had survived the assassination attempt and was still working for Ukraine – a signal to other Russians that they would be safe if they, too, defected.

According to sources, the real Kuzminov was buried in an unmarked grave in southern Spain.

Putin is taking action against his enemies in the West

Since the start of the Ukraine war, there have been more than 60 mysterious deaths of Putin’s enemies in Russia and Europe. Russia has also been implicated in sabotage attacks, including an arson attack on a German factory belonging to a leading arms company, an attack on one of the largest shopping centers in Poland and the disruption of an undersea gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea.

Last month, the head of Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence agency said Russia was on an “ongoing mission to create chaos on British and European streets” as part of what U.S. intelligence officials describe as Putin’s war against the West.

European officials are increasingly nervous about how much Putin will get away with. The European Union last month announced a new type of sanction targeting organizations and individuals that commit violence on Russia’s behalf. If it turns out that Spanish or EU citizens helped Kuzminov’s murderers escape, sanctions could be directed against them.

Jovita Neliupšienė, Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, believes that without the sanctions and diplomatic efforts, the situation would be even worse.

“The war would have a different scale and attitude if we didn’t have sanctions,” she said.

What Russia is doing should serve as a warning to countries around the world, Neliupšienė said.

“We have to be vigilant,” she said. “Each of us.”