Maksym Kuzminov, the pilot who switched sides in a daring defection, is now providing the Ukrainian military with key Russian aviation intelligence.
  • GONADS125@lemmy.worldEnglish
    45·
    1 year ago

    After months of planning, which included the removal of Kuzminov’s parents from Russia to Ukraine, he finally made his move in August, flying the helicopter at a low altitude in radio silence mode across the border and into Ukrainian territory.

    Was happy to read about his family getting out first. Always worry about that with russia, china, and north korea.

  • bassad@jlai.luEnglish
    181·
    1 year ago

    Kuzminov and his family are currently safe in Ukraine. The pilot was rewarded with $500,000 for defecting with his helicopter after the Ukrainian government last year implemented a program that incentivizes Russian military members to defect with their equipment in exchange for hefty monetary rewards.

    Nice mean to get cheap equipment

  • severien@lemmy.worldEnglish
    141·
    1 year ago

    Putting him on TV is a bad fucking idea. That must discourage a lot of Russian soldiers thinking about doing the same.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Could be that Russia’s response to this information might cause themselves more harm than it will affect future defectors, even if it prevents as many from doing so. There’s also the question about how safe it is to accept Russian defectors since any of them could be double agents, so maybe Ukraine isn’t that worried about cutting them off.

      Or maybe they want to flush out Russian assassins be offering a tantalizing political target instead of them going after more strategic ones.

      • severien@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Could be that Russia’s response to this information might cause themselves more harm than it will affect future defectors

        Yeah, that occurred to me as well. Provoke an atmosphere of suspicion, don’t trust each other, even perhaps encourage cases of friendly fire.

        It’s possible that the amount of defectors isn’t actually close to being important and the few real cases are more useful as psyops.