On Wednesday, the Spanish Interior Ministry said that Andrii Portnov, an adviser to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, was killed outside a school in Madrid.
According to the police, they received a call on the shooting of a Ukrainian citizen near the American School of Madrid in Pozuelo de Alarcón at 9:15 am local time (0715 GMT).
Police said Portnov had been shot down several times and back by more than one shooter when he was riding in a vehicle. The attackers then fled to a wooded area, the police added.
A man was found extended on the sidewalk near the school with fatal injuries “caused by at least three shots,” said Encarna Fernandez, spokesperson for Madrid’s emergency services.
“We could not confirm that the death of this person,” added Fernandez.
Local media reports claim that he was killed after putting his children at school. A parking lot about 150 meters (500 feet) outside the American school door of Madrid was completed by the police.
Who was Andrii Portnov?
Portnov was legislator in the 2000s and became deputy chief of the presidential administration under Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in 2014 after having repressed the pro-EU protest movement which led to the revolution of dignity in Ukraine.
During the presidency of Yanukovych, Portnov was largely considered a pro-Russian political figure. He participated in the drafting of the legislation aimed at persecuting the participants of the Revolution.
After fled Ukraine in 2014, Portnov would have lived in Russia before moving to Austria in 2015. In 2018, the Ukraine security service, or SBU, opened an investigation against it for suspicion of state betrayal, alleging its involvement in the illegal annexation of Russia of the Crimea.
The criminal affair was classified in 2019 and Portnov returned to Ukraine after the election of the current president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The United States imposed sanctions in Portnov in 2021 for an alleged corruption, declaring that it had used its influence in the judiciary and the police to access the Ukrainian courts and undermine reform efforts.
According to the media, Portnov used its relations to escape Ukraine again in 2022 despite the ban on men responsible for the military service to leave the country during the Russian invasion on a large scale.
The impact of Ukraine Invasion in Spain
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, there have been several crimes involving large -scale Russian and Ukrainian personalities in Spain, a country with important expatriate populations of the two nations.
In November and December of the same year, six-letters bombs were sent to high-level targets throughout Spain, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Ukrainian Embassy of Madrid, government offices, a European Union satellite company and the United States Embassy. A 76 -year -old Spanish retired official, who expressed his sympathy for Russia on social networks, was imprisoned for offenses.
In April 2022, a Russian businessman linked to the Russian gas company Novatek was found dead in an apparent suicide alongside his wife and daughter, who had undergone wounds by stab.
In February 2024, a Russian pilot who had defected in Ukraine with his helicopter was found dead because of several ball injuries in the parking lot of his building near Alicante.
Published by: Kieran Burke
