Andriy Portnov, an adviser to former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was reportedly shot dead on May 21 just outside of Madrid after dropping off his children at school.
A source from the Spanish National Police confirmed to Schemes, an investigative project of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, that the 52-year-old who served as deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office from 2010 to 2014 was killed in the shooting.
"Official sources confirm that the victim was shot several times as he was about to get into a car. Several people shot him in the back and head, then fled the scene into a wooded area," a police spokesman said.
A source in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine also confirmed Portnov's death to Schemes.
One of Portnov's lawyers, Hanna Kosinova, said by phone that she "can neither deny nor confirm the information."
Portnov was a senior aide to Yanukovych, who withdrew from signing Ukraine's association agreement with the European Union, a move that sparked the bloody Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014 against the scrapping of the EU deal and high-level government corruption.
Portnov, who has been under US sanctions since 2021 for alleged corruption, fled Ukraine in 2014 for Russia and reportedly then moved to Austria. It is not known when he relocated to Spain.
In 2019, Ukrainian police launched a probe against Portnov, accusing him of obstructing the professional activities of RFE/RL journalists by releasing the personal data of several members of the investigative journalism group Skhemy (Schemes) and UA:Pershy television, which were looking into his relations and dealings with current officials in the Ukrainian government.
A year earlier Ukraine's Security Service investigated him on suspicion of treason over his alleged involvement in Russia's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The criminal case was closed in 2019.
