The Russian army helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who defected to Ukraine, is dead. A dubious Italian website has made public the fact that he was apparently the victim of an assassination attempt. Did Russia want the world, and especially the people of Russia, to know about the murder? ntv.de finds evidence.
Six days pass before someone’s patience breaks. It was the days between Tuesday, February 13th, when a man was executed in the Spanish holiday region of Alicante, and February 19th, when it became public: the dead man was none other than the spectacularly defected Russian army helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov. For six days, the Spanish investigators had not published the identity of the murder victim, nor had there been any news from the Ukrainian side about the violent death of the side-changer Kuzminov, who was so proudly paraded last August. The Russian state news agency Tass made the assassination attempt public – with reference to an Italian internet portal that was not even known in Italy. The incident is a pointer not only to Russian attempts to exert influence in Italy, but also to the perpetrator of the murder.
On August 9, 2023, Kuzminov piloted a comparatively new Mi-8 transport helicopter loaded with spare parts for fighter aircraft into Ukrainian territory. Two other crew members were killed during the operation – it is unclear whether by Kuzminov or Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainian secret service had previously brought Kuzminov’s family to safety and paid him the equivalent of 460,000 euros after his defection. On top of that, there was a mistaken identity: After the assassination attempt on him, the Spanish media initially spoke of a 33-year-old Ukrainian, not a 28-year-old Russian.
“Traitors” die
According to his own account, Kuzminov came to the political conviction that Russia’s war against Ukraine was wrong. His life did not last long in Spain. The murder victim was attacked in the underground car park of a residential building, made it to the exit and, according to eyewitnesses, was run over by a vehicle, Spanish media reported, citing the police. Depending on the source, Kuzminov was killed with five to twelve shots. A burned-out car was later found in a neighboring town, which the attacker or attackers are said to have used. Based on the events of the crime, the police suspected an act of retaliation from the start.
It is proven that Russia sought Kuzminov’s life. Already in October, members of the military intelligence service bragged in Russian mediaof wanting to kill Kuzminov. The day after Kuzminov’s death became known, the director of the Russian foreign intelligence service SWR, Sergei Naryshkin, said according to Russian media: Kuzminov was a “moral corpse” when he planned his crime. Ukraine offers potential Russian defectors a lot of money – up to 920,000 euros are available for pilots who hand over themselves and their fighter jet to Ukraine.
Kuzminov’s death is a warning to potential imitators: they cannot feel safe anywhere. Ukrainian intelligence failed to protect Kuzminov. Kiev’s secret service agents, on the other hand, are duped. They elaborately staged the change of sides and then presented it to the world public. In addition, a principle from Soviet times that former KGB agent Vladimir Putin also cultivates still applies in Russia: traitors are punished, as demonstrated, among other things, by the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 or the Novichok attack on Sergei Skripal in 2018.
Surprisingly well informed
According to this logic, it is not enough to quietly kill Kremlin opponents and alleged traitors. The attacks should be seen; they are intended to demonstrate strength and intimidate. So the news of Kuzminov’s death found its way to the public on February 19th. Early on Monday morning, the Italian website il-corrispondente.com headlined: “Exclusive: ‘Traitors don’t live long'”a few hours later the Moscow-controlled one attacked Tass news agency the report about the true identity of the murder victim in Alicante.
Various Russian and Ukrainian media immediately took over the Tass report. In the evening, the Ukrainian secret service finally confirmed to Ukrainian radio that Kuzminov was dead. The Spanish one EFE news agency Shortly afterwards, investigators received confirmation that the murder victim was Kuzminov. The Italian website il-corrispondente.com already cited a source in the Spanish police this morning. But this claim must be questioned, because this is not a news site in the journalistic sense, which is why Russian media can carelessly link to il-corrispondente.com in their Kuzminov reporting.
The site is full of Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war. Russian readers, on the other hand, do not stumble over criticism of Vladimir Putin and his alleged special military operation. The article about Kuzminov’s death portrays the pilot as “driven by greed.” “Traitors don’t live long, and sooner or later it’s time to take revenge,” writes the anonymous author of the article – and uses the sentence as a quote for the headline. Self-quoting articles defaming murder victims have little to do with journalism, but the message is clear: Kuzminov deserved his death.
An interesting connection
The site, which launched at the end of March 2023, does not reveal its operators or authors. The imprint makes easily refutable false information. The address belongs to a luxury fashion store near Rome’s famous Spanish Steps, and the Italian tax office’s website classifies the tax ID number as incorrect. Instead of the .it domain usual for Italian media, il-corrispondente uses the commercial .com; The web host is in the Netherlands, the operator is supposedly in the Baltics.
So who is behind the page with the sensational news that even journalists in Italy didn’t know about, but the editors of the Moscow-run Tass news agency did? The Italian website specialist Alex Orlowski, who deals with propaganda on the Internet in his free time, published a tip on Tuesday night: He discovered connections between il-corrispondente.com and the political activist Amedeo Avondet. The man from Turin was one of the few followers of il-corrispondente.com’s Instagram profile – and promptly deleted his following after Orlowski’s publication.
More importantly, Avondet’s political splinter movement Italia Unita, which appears to be more of a one-man operation, is closely linked to the site. The party’s Telegram channel, viewed by ntv.de, has linked its articles dozens of times since il-corrispondente.com was launched on March 28, 2023. Avondet itself has almost always shared these website articles via Italia Unita’s Telegram channel, sometimes shortly after the texts appeared.
These predominantly deal with alleged Ukrainian human rights crimes, praise Russia’s humanitarian activities in the occupied territories and condemn Western politicians who support Ukraine. These are also Kosimov’s themes. He describes himself as a journalist and has also written for Russian media and accompanied Russian troops in Ukraine; to be seen in detail on his Instagram channel.
A firm denial
In the Telegram chat with ntv.de, however, Avondet denied authorship: “I am neither the director nor the ‘author’ of the website, nor do I have an official position within the editorial team of ‘Il Corrispondente’,” explained Avondet. He only wrote “technical articles” for the site, as he did for other media. It is important to him: The Italia Unita channel has links to articles from a wide range of media. In addition, il-corrispondente.com never dealt with him or his party. “The claims that ‘Il Corrispondente’ is a propaganda organ created ad hoc to promote me are unfortunately not true,” Avondet wrote.
As far as he knows, the false information about the website’s operators served to “protect management from the legal consequences of publishing inconvenient news.” But in Italy, as in Germany, publishers have to identify themselves in accordance with press law; especially in Russia. It is important for Avondet to be quoted as saying: “If Julian Assange had written anonymously for Il Corrispondente, he would probably be free now, at home with his family.” The Ukrainian secret service is trying to kill Avondet, which makes it all the more important to protect the website’s sources. The explanation largely coincides argumentatively with a self-portrayal that on February 20th on il-corrispondente.com appeared.
No stranger – in Russia
While Avondet is the only person who has been connected to the website so far, one parallel is even more striking: the Russian news agency Tass, unlike the Italian public, not only knew il-corrisponente.com, it also has a connection to Avondet. Between June 2022 and February 2023, Tass reported on four pro-Russian events organized by Avondet in Bergamo, Bologna, Milan and San Remo, as well as a petition initiated by him. This called for an investigation into alleged Ukrainian human rights crimes in Donbass.
Lots of news for Russia’s media, in which Avondet appeared as a key witness to the supposedly great support for Putin’s Russia in Italy. He himself wrote to ntv.de about himself: “I wasn’t ‘hired by Russia’, I have had strong sympathies with this country since I was in the eighth grade.” That was in 2014. Nine years later, a bizarre website whose only traceable connection is Avondet not only made public the assassination attempt on a Russian defector, it justified it. Where the portal got this information remains speculation.