Former Ukrainian politician living abroad shot dead on school run

A man who served as an aide to a former Ukrainian president has been shot dead in Madrid, local authorities have said.

Unidentified gunmen shot former politician Andriy Portnov, 51, outside the gates of the American School of Madrid in the Pozuelo area of the Spanish capital on Wednesday morning, according to a source close to the investigation. "Several persons shot him in the back and the head," according to an Interior Ministry source, before they "fled towards a forest area".

Police received the report at 9.15am local time and rushed to Calle America, where Mr Portnov is believed to have been taking his children to school, radio station Cadena SER said. Emergency service vehicles and a police cordon were pictured at the scene.

Mr Portnov served as a senior aide to Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovich before he was ousted in 2014. The pro-Russian leader was driven out by Ukraine's 2014 Orange Revolution - and has been living in exile in Russia ever since.

After fleeing Ukraine in 2014, Mr Portnov is believed to have lived briefly in Russia before moving to Austria. It is not known when he moved to Spain.

Ukraine's secret security service opened a state treason investigation into him in 2018 over claims he was involved in Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 - but closed it in 2019. He was sanctioned by the US in 2021, being designated as someone "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".

Since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, crimes have been committed against several high-profile Russians and Ukrainians in Spain, which has large ex-pat populations from both countries. In November and December 2022, six letter bombs were sent to targets across the country, to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, as well as its US counterpart.

A 76-year-old retired Spanish civil servant was jailed over the offences after his social media searches suggested he was sympathetic towards Russia's invasion. Read more from Sky NewsThis is what I do before entering a war zoneLoser in Romanian election to contest resultThree dead and two missing in flooding In April that year, a Russian businessman linked to the country's Novatek gas company was found dead with his wife and daughter, having all sustained stab wounds.

In February last year, a Russian pilot who defected to the Ukrainian side was found dead with gunshot wounds in the car park of his apartment near Alicante..