Published on
21/05/2025 – 12:54 GMT+2
Former Ukrainian baby-kisser Andriy Portnov was once shot lifeless on Wednesday morning out of doors a US faculty in a rich suburb of Madrid, Spanish government stated.
Police gained a choice in regards to the capturing on the American School of Madrid within the Pozuelo house at 9:15 am, and rushed to the scene, in keeping with Spain’s inner ministry.
Radio station Cadena SER stated the 52-year-old was once taking his youngsters to university when he was once shot a number of instances. El Mundo newspaper stated nobody else was once injured.
Witnesses reported that Portnov was once shot “several times” within the head and frame by means of a couple of gunman when he was once entering a car, in keeping with Spanish police. The assailants then fled on foot into a close-by wooded house, the police stated.
Portnov was once a senior aide to Ukraine’s former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who notoriously withdrew from signing the Ukrainian affiliation settlement with the EU, sparking the bloody Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014.
During Yanukovych’s presidency, Portnov was once broadly seen as a pro-Kremlin determine and was once enthusiastic about drafting regulation aimed toward persecuting contributors of the 2014 revolution.
After Yanukovych fled Ukraine for Russia in February 2014 following months of unrest that led to rankings of protesters killed by means of his forces in Kyiv, Portnov was once put on a number of sanctions lists by means of the West, together with the EU and Canada, for his movements as a part of the previous management.
Portnov, who had challenged the sanctions positioned upon him, was once got rid of from the EU blacklist of folks whose price range had been frozen for misappropriation of state price range or human rights violations in Ukraine in 2015.
Having additionally fled Ukraine in 2014, Portnov reportedly lived in Russia in 2015 ahead of relocating to Austria. It was once no longer in an instant transparent when he moved to Spain.
In 2018, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened an investigation in opposition to him on suspicion of state treason, alleging his involvement in Russia’s unlawful annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The legal case was once closed in 2019.
In 2021, Portnov was once put on the United States sanctions record for “using his influence to buy access and decisions in Ukraine’s courts and undermining reform efforts”, in keeping with the United States embassy in Kyiv.
Following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of crimes involving Russia have came about in Spain.
In one such contemporary incident, a person who was once discovered lifeless from more than one gunshot wounds within the parking storage of his condominium block close to Alicante in February 2024 was once recognized as Maksim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who had defected to Ukraine in his military helicopter.
