Putin 'assassination' near Benidorm as police probe body found floating in pool
Authorities in Spain are looking into whether a top Ukrainian official was assassinated near the popular tourist spot of Benidorm.
The death of 61-year-old Igor Hrushevsky comes after a defected Russian helicopter pilot was assassinated in the same gated residential estate nearly 18 months ago. Hrushevsky, a former employee of Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs, was found lifeless , bleeding from one ear and face down in the pool by a Ukrainian neighbour at around 9:30pm on June 29. The passer-by pulled him from the water and performed CPR and called paramedics, but nothing could be done to save him.
Civil Guard investigators initially said Hrushevsky's death was being treated as an accident. They said that 'no evidence' suggested it was a crime. Sources suggested Hrushevsky, who had been living at the La Cala Alta complex since February this year, had died from drowning.
But overnight, leading Spanish news website El Espanol reported Spain's CNI intelligence agency, the equivalent of Britain's MI5 and MI6 combined, was now investigating whether killers working for Vladimir Putin could have been behind another targeted Costa Blanca assassination. The CNI never talks about ongoing operations, while the Civil Guard in Alicante is yet to respond.
Citing sources in the intelligence services, El Espanol said agents are looking into whether there is a link between Hrushevsky's death and that of Maxim Kuzminov. Kuzminov, branded a traitor by Moscow after defecting to Ukraine in 2023.
He was shot six times around 5pm after being chased from the second floor of a basement car park underneath the La Cala Alta large residential estate.
No arrests have been made in connection with Kuzminov's killing. Spanish police concluded he could have been killed by hitmen working for Russian intelligence.
'As this is a matter concerning national security and the activities of an intelligence service, the members of the centre investigating this matter are doing so with the utmost discretion, independently of any investigation that may be carried out by the Civil Guard,' El Espanol said. 'A discovery of this nature would prove that both crimes were committed in the same way, by professional hitmen working for organised crime, but carrying out a contract paid for by the Russian intelligence services.'
A local living in the apartment complex said it was 'clear' Hrushevsky, whom reports say was once the head of the organised crime department in the central Cherkasy and Kirovohrad regions, 'didn't drown'. Identified only as 'Blanca', the resident said 'the water only comes up to my neck and I'm a short person'.
Regarding Kuzminov's killing, a car thought to have been driven by a getaway driver was later found burnt out in nearby El Campello. He had been using a false identity which initially led investigators to believe he was a 33-year-old Ukrainian national..
Spanish press said Kuzminov's undoing could have been a call to an ex-girlfriend inviting her to Alicante, a favourite with Russians and Ukrainians who have made their homes on the Costa Blanca. Putin placed Kuzminov on his most-wanted list after he was paid a reported £400,000 to steal a Mi-8 armoured Russian military chopper in a major propaganda coup for Ukraine. Two crew members were killed after landing.
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