A key aide to a former Ukrainian president was shot dead on Wednesday morning outside an American school in Madrid.
Spain’s interior ministry confirmed Andriy Portnov, 51, a senior aide to Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych, died after he was shot taking his children to school in the affluent neighbourhood of Pozuelo at 9.15am (8.15 UK time) local time.
Police said witnesses had reported Portnov was shot "several times" in the head and body by more than one gunman when he was getting into his car, a black Mercedes Benz.
The assailants then fled on foot. Spanish media has reported investigators are looking for a tall, thin man who fled towards Casa de Campo.
A Spanish police source earlier told El Pais that a citizen reported finding a man “wounded, lying on the ground and unconscious”.
The source added: “One shot, the fatal one, was to the head, at the level of the neck, from behind but at an angle, and the other two to the body, in the abdomen and side.”
Luis Rayo, 19, who lives in a building next to the school, said that he was sleeping when he heard the sound of gunfire.
"I heard five bullets and then came here to see what happened," Mr Rayo said.
Police are looking into two lines of inquiry: a politically motivated attack or a score-settling murder relating to organised crime, El Mundo reported.
The shooting, which took place as dozens of students were filing into the school in the morning, will be investigated by the Madrid Judicial Police Brigade’s Homicide Unit V, the outlet added.
After the 2014 regime change in Ukraine, Mr Portnov was placed on several sanctions lists by the West, including the EU and Canada, for his actions as part of the former administration.
He had been involved in the authoritarian crackdown against the Maidan Uprising, a wave of civil unrest in Ukraine sparked by Mr Yanukovych’s desires for close ties with Russia at the expense of the EU.
Mr Portnov, who challenged the sanctions placed upon him, was removed from the EU sanctions list in 2015, one year after being placed on it.
In 2021, he was added to the US sanctions list, the American embassy in Kyiv said.
The department said in a statement: “Widely known as a court fixer, Portnov was credibly accused of using his influence to buy access and decisions in Ukraine’s courts and undermining reform efforts. As of 2019, Portnov took steps to control the Ukrainian judiciary, influence associated legislation, sought to place loyal officials in senior judiciary positions, and purchase court decisions.”
Mr Portnov lived in Russia after the Yanukovych government was ousted, before moving to Vienna, Austria, where he practised law. He returned to Ukraine in May 2019.
In 2018, prosecutors opened an investigation into Mr Portnov for his alleged involvement in Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, shortly after Mr Yanukovych was ousted. Later that year, Ukraine’s SBU security service opened criminal proceedings into Mr Portnov relating to treason.
Both cases were closed after a pre-trial investigation, according to official letters published by Mr Portnov.
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