Eight shots taken in the early afternoon within a populated area, with cameras not previously disabled, two missed and a third nonlethal, followed by a getaway in a stolen car, and shell casings left on the ground. The way the killers of the Russian defector Maxim Kuzmínov ended his life in a garage in La Vila Joiosa has reinforced suspicions among security and state interference experts that the crime carried a Kremlin mandate carried out by gangsters.
It is the working hypothesis of investigators that the murder on February 13 was shaped at various levels by a Kremlin directive, more precisely a military order. Yet sources consulted make no claim of execution by agents with clear affiliation to or direct command from the Russian intelligence service, now said to have dispatched orders through proxies rather than direct operatives.
These sources also believe the subcontracted hitmen may not have left Spanish soil, and that this might not be the first lethal mission carried out for a client in this country.
Blurry borders
Even before the current Ukraine conflict erupted, Russian actors allegedly blurred the lines between intelligence services and organized crime. Depending on the goal, they reportedly prefer to outsource certain actions, a diplomatic circle notes, with mafiosi serving as informants in the countries where Russia operates.
This does not resemble the poisonings of Alexander Litvinenko or Sergei Skripal, where high-level intelligence officers were involved. The recent trend leans toward enlisting lethal operatives from criminal networks as a way to strike dissidents and opponents who are not top-tier public figures. It offers a route that, if the hitmen are caught, leaves little to trace back to the Russian state while sending a clear international message when they go unpunished.
To pull off a proxy operation, the collaboration would need to be anchored in a already-established Russian criminal network, with safe havens, the means to strike, and trusted loyalists. The Costa Blanca and the Costa del Sol are cited as examples of such territories, where attackers might still be found according to diplomatic sources. In those areas, the original killers could still be at large.
The message
The lessons of the La Vila killing are spreading through careful, staged channels. Russian and pro-Russian media across Western Europe began circulating on February 19 that the mysterious Ukrainian-sounding man shot in Alicante was in fact Captain and helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzmínov, previously noted for a bold desertion last year when he fled with a MI-8 helicopter into a Kharkiv base, delivering the aircraft and military intelligence documents.
Shortly after his transfer to Ukraine and his televised opposition to the war, Kuzmínov, aged 28, was identified under a new Ukrainian alias, Ihor Sevchenko, a fictitious Donetsk-born figure, aged 33, according to documents supplied by Kyiv. With that passport, he entered Spain in October and soon faced the harsh reality of a city with a significant Russian presence.
The desertion reportedly cost the lives of two helicopter crew members who were shot by Ukrainian forces when they refused to surrender. That detail, intensified by family pain, prompted the Kremlin to allow a television broadcast in September that Kuzmínov had been sentenced to death.
If the subtle propaganda of the crime relies on shell casings left at the scene, the judicial process may eventually determine whether those traces were left as a deliberate signal.
State security authorities have closely monitored the tempo and coordination of the murder’s dissemination and the true identity of the deceased, beginning on February 19 with accounts across social networks, pseudodiaries, and pro-Russian blogs in Europe. Some outlets have asserted without citing sources that the Russian victim in Alicante had issues with drugs and crime, a narrative that appears in the broader media sphere.
At the end of January, the Italian government publicly challenged rumor mills suggesting that Lieutenant Colonel and international liaison Claudio Castiglia had been poisoned while visiting Ukraine. The claim originated from a Russian embassy post, with Defense Ministry officials in Italy denying it, clarifying Castiglia died of natural causes in Italian territory.
Looking toward Lloret
Some sources see a potential precedent for Alicante in the Lloret de Mar case on the Costa Brava. There, in April 2022, Serguei Protosenya, a top figure at the Russian gas giant Novatek, was found dead at his villa, his wife and teenage daughter also dead in the same home. Police in Catalonia indicated the leading theory pointed to domestic violence followed by suicide, though investigators did not entirely rule out killer involvement.
In Moscow, a related death occurred the same day involving Vladislav Avayev, a Gazprombank executive and Protosenya associate, found dead with his wife and daughter after a pistol was used. These incidents fit a pattern of disappearances among Russian industrial and financial elites during a tense period of the Putin era.
Similar precedents
February saw comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin over the possibility of involvement of Vadim Krsaikov, a convicted hitman who killed an exiled Chechen fighter in Berlin in 2020, sparking debate after a TV interview. In late September 2022, a Russian-backed claim that targeted a European activist was met with denials and refutations from authorities that it was a purposeful Kremlin operation. The topic resurfaced as a broader debate about state-tolerated violence abroad and the use of criminal networks to carry out extraterritorial actions.
In another related case, concerns about covert warfare and state-backed proxies have been echoed by regional political figures who argue that a broader pattern of cross-border violence is being orchestrated through non-state actors with tenuous ties to government apparatuses. The discussion continues as investigations examine the connections and the possible implications for international relations and regional security.