Ukrainian ex-top official shot lifeless exterior Madrid college – studies

A former main Ukrainian official has been shot lifeless exterior an American college within the Spanish capital Madrid, studies say.

The 51-year-old man, named by Ukrainian and Spanish sources as Andriy Portnov, had simply dropped his kids off on the college within the Pozuelo de Alarcón space of town, studies say.

At least one unidentified attacker fired a number of pictures on the sufferer earlier than fleeing right into a wooded space in a close-by public park, Spanish studies mentioned.

Portnov had been an MP and deputy head within the administration of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president ousted in 2014 after months of protests.

He had beforehand been an MP in Yulia Tymoshenko’s governing occasion.

He left Ukraine after the revolution solely to return in 2019 after Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president.

He then left Ukraine once more, and in 2021 was sanctioned by the US Treasury, which mentioned he had been “extensively generally known as a courtroom fixer” who had taken steps to regulate the judiciary and undermine reform efforts.

The European Union had earlier imposed sanctions on Portnov, however he challenged the transfer in courtroom and received the case.

It was not clear who was behind the taking pictures that came about at about 09:15 native time (07:15 GMT) on Wednesday, reportedly as kids had been nonetheless getting into the college.

Police drones and a helicopter searched the world for a gunman who, in line with witnesses, was a skinny man in a blue tracksuit. Spanish studies steered the gunman might have had at the very least one confederate driving on a motorcycle.

The same gun assault came about in 2018, when a Colombian drug trafficker was fatally shot exterior a British Council college just a few kilometres away.

But the motive behind Wednesday’s assault shouldn’t be but recognized. Emergency companies on the scene may solely affirm that that Portnov had suffered a number of bullet wounds within the again and the top.

Portnov’s black Mercedes automotive was cordoned off and the college wrote to folks to substantiate that each one the scholars inside had been protected.

Although Ukraine’s intelligence companies have been linked to a number of killings in Russia and occupied areas of Ukraine, a deadly assault in Spain in February final 12 months was linked to Russian hitmen.

The sufferer, a Russian helicopter pilot, was shot lifeless close to Alicante, months after defecting to Ukraine.

Authorities in Kyiv mentioned that they had provided to guard Maxim Kuzminov in Ukraine, however he’s believed to have moved to Spain’s south-east coast beneath a false identification.