International • 14:11 • Modified at 14:11 Former Ukrainian politician shot dead on the street in Madrid Author : Mark van Harreveld Former Ukrainian politician Andri Portnov was shot dead on the street in Madrid. Portnov was a prominent adviser to pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed in 2014. The attack was carried out in front of an American school, where Portnov had just dropped off his children, El País reports. The newspaper writes that two or three attackers killed him with five shots, one of them in the head.
Portnov was a key aide to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in the 2014 Euromaidan revolution. After the revolution, the pro-Russian Portnov fled to Russia. He was placed on the European Union sanctions list for embezzlement of state funds and human rights violations in Ukraine, but was removed from the list a year later. In 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors opened an investigation into his possible involvement in the Russian annexation of Crimea, and an investigation into Portnov's corruption is still ongoing in Ukraine.
Not the first time It is not the first crime involving either a high-ranking Russian or a high-ranking Ukrainian, particularly in Spain, which has a large expat community of both nationalities. In November and December 2022, six letter bombs were sent to high-profile targets in Spain, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, government offices, a European Union satellite company and the US embassy. A 76-year-old retired Spanish civil servant whose social media searches suggested sympathies for Russia was jailed for the crimes.
In April 2022, a Russian businessman with ties to Russian gas company Novatek was found dead in an apparent suicide, and in February 2024, a Russian pilot who had defected to Ukraine in his helicopter was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in the parking garage of his apartment building near Alicante.
