A former Ukrainian lawmaker and aide to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych was shot dead near Madrid on Wednesday, a Spanish police source told AFP.
Police responded to a shooting in the affluent town of Pozuelo de Alarcón, where “several people” shot the man in the back and head as he was “about to get into a vehicle,” the source said, confirming the victim was Andrii Portnov.
The shooters fled toward a wooded area, the source added. The attack took place near a private American school.
Portnov served as a lawmaker in the 2000s and later as deputy head of the presidential administration under Yanukovych, a pro-Kremlin leader who fled to Russia in 2014 after a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
Portnov left Ukraine after Yanukovych’s ouster and reportedly lived in Russia and Austria before returning following the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The United States sanctioned Portnov in 2021 for alleged corruption, accusing him of leveraging his influence over Ukraine’s judiciary and law enforcement to undermine reform efforts.
Media reports said Portnov used his government ties to flee Ukraine again in 2022, despite a wartime ban on military-aged men leaving the country.
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