A former official at Ukraine’s Interior Ministry has been found dead at the very same Spanish resort where a Russian military defector was murdered.
Ihor Hrushevskyi, the ex-head of the anti-crime police unit, was discovered in the town of Villajoyosa, a few miles from the resort popular with British tourists for its packaged holidays.
The 61-year-old was floating face-down in the communal pool – no deeper than 1.5 metres – of the Cala Alta house complex, El Español reported.
Neighbours pulled him out, performing CPR, but they were unable to save him and when paramedics arrived at the scene, he was pronounced dead.
While there were no obvious signs of violence, blood was coming from one ear, so foul play has not been ruled out.
The incident happened in the morning of June 29, but the identity of the man was only revealed this week.
It was just a few months ago that Hrushevskyi had purchased a flat in one of the blocks and he was still renovating.
His death comes a little more than a year after Maksim Kuzinovm – an ex-Russian helicopter pilot, who had deserted to Ukraine – was killed there.
Police found his bullet-riddled body in the underground parking garage of that same resort.
A burnt-out car apparently used by his attackers was found near the scene of the crime.
The 28-year-old fled Russian and landed a Mi-8 helicopter in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in August, 2023, while flying between two Russian bases.
He had reportedly contacted the Ukrainian secret service to inform them of his decision to defect and they had promised him £397,000, protection for his family and new documents.
A state TV report from October, in which Russian propagandists branded Kuzminov ‘a traitor to the motherland’, claimed that Russian intelligence operatives had received orders to assassinate him.
Sergei Naryshkin, Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, said at the time: ‘In Russia it is customary to speak either good of the dead or nothing at all.
‘This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment when he planned his dirty and terrible crime.’
Ukrainian officials have not yet commented on Hrushevskyi’s death.
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