Ukrainian ex-politician shot dead in Madrid

MADRID: Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a former Ukrainian politician Wednesday morning outside a school in a wealthy suburb of Madrid, Spain's interior ministry said. Police received a call about the shooting of a Ukrainian citizen at 9.15am outside the elite American School of Madrid, located in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid police said.

"Several persons shot him in the back and the head and then fled towards a forested area," an interior ministry source said. The victim, Andriy Portnov, 51, was a senior aide to Ukraine's pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovich who was ousted in a 2014 popular uprising. Portnov left for Russia the same year and has faced investigations in Ukraine over accusations of treason and embezzlement, as well as international sanctions, although the charges and EU sanctions were later dropped. The US treasury department put him on sanctions list in 2021.Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there have been several high-profile crimes involving Russians and Ukrainians in Spain. Reuters