A man who served as an aide to a former Ukrainian president has been shot dead in Madrid, according to local officials.
Andriy Portnov, a 51-year-old ex-politician, was reportedly gunned down on Wednesday morning by unidentified assailants near the entrance of the American School of Madrid, situated in the Pozuelo district on the outskirts of the city.
‘Several persons shot him in the back and the head,’ said a representative from the Spanish Interior Ministry, adding that the attackers ‘fled towards a forest area’.
Police were alerted at 9.15am local time and rushed to Calle America, where Portnov was reportedly dropping off his children at school, Spanish radio station Cadena SER reported.
Photos from the scene showed emergency services and a police perimeter in place.
Portnov previously held a prominent position as a senior adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who was forced from office in 2014.
Yanukovich, a pro-Russian figure, was ousted during Ukraine’s 2014 Orange Revolution and has since taken refuge in Russia.
Following his departure from Ukraine in 2014, Portnov is believed to have first gone to Russia, then relocated to Austria. The exact date of his move to Spain remains unclear.
In 2018, Ukraine’s state security agency launched a treason investigation into Portnov, alleging his involvement in Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. That case was dropped a year later, in 2019.
The United States imposed sanctions on Portnov in 2021, identifying him as an individual ‘responsible for or complicit in, or (who) has directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery’.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, several incidents targeting notable Russian and Ukrainian nationals have occurred in Spain, which hosts significant communities from both countries.
Among them were six letter bombs sent in late 2022 to various recipients across Spain, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, and the US Embassy.
A 76-year-old retired Spanish civil servant was later convicted over the attacks, with his social media activity indicating support for Russia’s military actions. ALSO READ: Letter bomb suspect, aged 74, goes on trial in Spain, accused of terrorism.
In April that year, a Russian businessman linked to the country’s Novatek gas company was found dead with his wife and daughter, having all sustained stab wounds.
In February 2025, a Russian pilot who defected to the Ukrainian side was found dead with gunshot wounds in the car park of his apartment near Alicante. ALSO READ: Defector murdered in Spain was ‘moral corpse’, says Russian spy chief.
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A plena luz del día, en el colegio de sus hijos en Pozuelo, en Madrid, han asesinado a tiros a un ex político ucraniano. Andriy Portnov trabajó para el expresidente de su país, el prorruso Viktor Yanukovich.
Arranca el #TD
▶️https://t.co/ZgJQU9hav8
▶️https://t.co/fBgeXmvQr8 pic.twitter.com/1bCkqBBSdC— Telediarios de TVE (@telediario_tve) May 21, 2025
🔴 #Directo | Tiroteo en Pozuelo
La Policía busca al asesino de Andriy Portnov: la víctima fue tiroteada tras dejar a sus hijos en el colegio https://t.co/5cBVgLdqdJ pic.twitter.com/H66E2vp1lf
— 20minutos.es (@20m) May 21, 2025
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