2.10.2023 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
Recently, several new cases have become known in which Russian military personnel voluntarily cooperated with Ukrainian intelligence and then switched to our side. There are also cases when Russian army officers were able to leave their country and then surrendered to Western intelligence services. Every day, there are more and more people who have realized the criminal essence of the war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine.
Read more about the most resonant cases in the OBOZREVATEL material.
More and more defectors
The flight of Mi-8 pilot Maxim Kuzminov from the Russian Federation was a complete shock for the Russian occupiers. He cooperated with the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense and transported an enemy helicopter to Ukraine.
The route from the Kursk airfield to the Kharkov region is about 20 km. In the border area, the aircraft flew at a low altitude – only 5–10 meters, and with radio silence.
As it turned out, the Russian military man himself contacted representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate because he did not want to participate in Russian war crimes. As a result, the Ukrainian defenders received not only a new helicopter, but also valuable information about enemy aviation.
Intelligence officials said that according to the law, Ukraine will pay the pilot monetary compensation, guarantee the safety of him and his family members, and also provide him the right to choose his future place of residence and work.
“Now, Maxim is a free man in a free country. He is thinking about his intention to join the Ukrainian Defense Forces and further counteract Russian aggression. But this will be his decision – a person who made a conscious choice,” said Andrey Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the MOU.
Another special operation by military intelligence officers, which became known the other day, also caused a great resonance in the Russian Federation. The Main Intelligence Directorate recruited professional Russian military officer Daniil Alferov. Moreover, he convinced 11 servicemen from Russia, who at that moment were in the occupied part of the Kherson region, to surrender.
Alferov claims that he was categorically against the war with Ukraine. “I didn’t understand why it started… It was a complete shock for me. I knew that Ukraine had never been an enemy. And I didn’t watch or listen to propaganda after my dismissal,” the Russian said.
The experience of serving in the army, in particular in Dagestan, where “a counter-terrorist operation was carried out,” closed the path for Alferov to travel outside the borders of Russia: after leaving the army, he was banned from leaving the country for two years.
In 2022, the Russian managed to avoid mobilization, and in the winter of 2023 he was summoned to the military registration and enlistment office. There, Alferov was met by the military commissar of the city of Shchelkovo and a “special officer” from the FSB. As a result, they were sent to fight in Ukraine.
The feeling of injustice prompted the Russian lieutenant to agree to the offer of cooperation received from the Ukrainian side, and since June he was already in full swing transmitting intelligence data to the GUR.
The number of defectors is increasing every day. Under the pretext of a vacation, a pilot of the Russian Guard aviation squadron named Gavrichenko and his family went on vacation to Dubai, and then straight to the American embassy. There he declared his reluctance to fight against Ukraine and his readiness to cooperate with American intelligence services.
Earlier, another Russian officer fled to Lithuania – the navigator-operator of combat helicopter military unit No. 44440 (Island, Pskov region). This is the 15th Army Aviation Brigade, which has been involved in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since day one.
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has already put Dmitry Mishov, lieutenant of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, on the wanted list.
The tip of the iceberg
OBOZREVATEL’s interlocutor in Ukrainian intelligence says that the above cases are the tip of the iceberg.
“You understand that special operations love silence, and a minimum of information even about the most successful ones gets into the public field. It is important to understand that every day in the Russian army and other structures of the aggressor state there are more and more people who do not want to kill Ukrainians, who realized the terrible essence of the war unleashed by Putin. This is a fact,” says the officer.
Meanwhile, Russia has taken the increasingly frequent cases of “betrayal” very seriously.
“The GUR is holding demonstration actions, and we can only look at all this, clenching our fists in impotent anger,” wrote one occupation Telegram channel.
Ukrainian intelligence officers read such “opuses” with a smile and promise new “pleasant surprises.”
This is a good development, not only for Ukraine, but also for those Russians who opt to defect. This saves their lives.
Let’s hope that this will snowball into a much bigger thing.