Dead Drop: March 1

PILOT ERROR: ‘Some people claim there’s a woman to blame, but I know … it’s my own damn fault’ (to paraphrase Jimmy Buffet.) Last week, The Dead Drop included a nugget about the apparent assassination of Russian defector Maxim Kuzminov in Spain. Details are still dribbling out about how the Russians ‘found and fixed’ the pilot who diverted his helicopter to Ukraine in his own ‘defection’ maneuver.  Now there is reporting that Kuzminov apparently collected a $500,000 reward for answering the call to defect and thought it would be more fun to live in Spain than Ukraine. Apparently, that’s where he really veered off course.  Some Ukrainian media (as recounted in the British press) are reporting that Kuzminov reached out to an old girlfriend in Russia and invited her to join him in Spain. Kuzminov did not get any visits from his old flame but did collect six bullet wounds and was run over by his own car. According to the usually unreliable RT (formerly known as Russia Today) Kuzminov is not being mourned back home. RT says the pilot’s estranged father called his son a “Judas” who sold out his country for a fistful of dollars. “Of course, I expected that to happen to him,” his father said in a video on Telegram. “No country has ever respected a traitor.” The dad added: “But I pity him that he sold out for small change. Betrayed his fatherland, his teammates.” Apparently, the message is – if you are going to sell out the fatherland – you father would like you to ask for “big change.”

THE NERVE OF THOSE GUYS FROM LANGLEY – (and theR.I.P. irony – which apparently died recently in Beijing): Newsweek says China’s spy outfit – the Ministry of State Security (MSS) has accused the CIA of launching an all-out spy ‘war’. The MSS accusation was apparently triggered by comments made by CIA Director Bill Burns in a recent article, saying “China remains the only U.S. rival with both the intent to reshape the international order and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so.” Burns’ Chinese counterparts are apparently annoyed that the Agency is hiring and training more Mandarin speakers and is pushing back against pushback over their aggressive espionage operation targeting the U.S. Anyone know the Mandarin word for ‘irony’?