Adviser To Ukrainian Ex-President Shot Dead Outside American School In Spain | EUROtoday

MADRID (AP) — Spanish authorities mentioned that an adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was shot useless on Wednesday when gunmen focused him exterior the American School of Madrid.

Andrii Portnov, 52, was recognized because the sufferer by Spain’s Interior Ministry. He was shot at 9:15 a.m. native time (0715 GMT), authorities mentioned.

Local media reported that he was killed after dropping his kids off for sophistication.

Witnesses reported that Portnov was shot “several times” within the head and physique by multiple gunman when he was getting right into a car, police mentioned. The assailants then fled on foot right into a wooded space, police mentioned.

Police cordoned off a criminal offense scene in a car parking zone round 150 meters (500 toes) exterior the gate of the American School of Madrid.

Portnov is a former Ukrainian politician intently tied to Yanukovych, having served as deputy head of the presidential workplace from 2010 to 2014.

During Yanukovych’s presidency, Portnov was broadly considered as a pro-Russia political determine and was concerned in drafting laws geared toward persecuting contributors of the 2014 revolution in Ukraine.

Luis Rayo, 19, lives in a constructing subsequent to the varsity, and mentioned that he was sleeping when he heard the sound of gunfire.

“I heard five bullets and then came here to see what happened,” Rayo mentioned.

After fleeing Ukraine in 2014, Portnov reportedly lived in Russia in 2015 earlier than relocating to Austria. It wasn’t instantly clear 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 felony case was closed in 2019.

In 2021, the United States imposed private sanctions on Portnov, designating him as somebody “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.”

Joseph Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Illia Novikov contributed to this report from Kyiv, Ukraine.