Russian Pilot Describes Defection to Ukraine, Urges Others to Follow

livemint.com:

KYIV, Ukraine—A Russian military pilot who defected to Ukraine last month said he flew his Mi-8 helicopter low over fields with its transponder off to evade detection, capping an operation planned over months with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. In his first public appearance at a news conference in Ukraine, Capt. Maksim Kuzminov said Tuesday that he reached out to the agency, best known by the acronym HUR, late last year after months lamenting the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his part in it.

Kuzminov, a 28-year-old from Russia’s Far East, said he had worked as a transport pilot for the Russian military, moving troops and equipment across Russia and, once the war started, also to occupied territory in Ukraine’s south. He agreed on a plan with HUR to defect by flying the Mi-8 helicopter at his command through a safe corridor into Ukraine. Two other Russian service members were on board when he set off from Kursk in Russia’s south, and neither knew of his plans, he said.

When he neared his destination near Vovchansk in northeastern Ukraine, he said the men began to panic. They jumped out of the helicopter when it landed and sprinted north toward the border. HUR’s director Maj.

Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Ukrainian media that the two men were killed when they attempted to flee. The successful operation on Aug.

9 is a coup for HUR, marking the first time a Russian Air Force pilot has defected since Moscow launched its war 18 months ago. The agency has compared it to Operation Diamond, a three-year mission by Israel’s Mossad national intelligence agency that ended in August 1966 with the capture of a Soviet-built MiG-21 jet fighter flown by an Iraqi Air Force defector. HUR sought to capitalize on the audacity of the