The reported use of Russian bullets and the undisguised glee in Moscow reinforced the point: you cannot defect to Ukraine with an army helicopter, deliver a propaganda coup to the Kremlin’s enemies, pocket a payment equivalent to $500,000, leave the relative sanctuary of Kyiv and expect to survive.
“Chronicle of an execution foretold,” said the Spanish newspaper El Periódico, paraphrasing Gabriel García Márquez’s novella, and it was hard to dispute the sense of inevitability.
Such was the shock and anxiety, few residents of the apartment block in Villajoyosa wished to give their names or in some cases even acknowledge the nature of what happened.
Military intelligence officers who coordinated his defection say he initially agreed to join the Freedom of Russia Legion, a group of Russian volunteers fighting with Ukraine.
He added that Kuzminov had not read the works of Viktor Suvorov, a Russian defector turned writer, who laid bare the brutal methods of Moscow military intelligence.
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment when he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” said Sergei Naryshkin, the chief of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service.
The original article contains 1,126 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!