Ex-Yanukovych adviser Portnov fatally shot near Madrid

Reuters and SER reported the information.

The incident reportedly occurred around 9:15 a.m. as Portnov was driving his children to school in the affluent Madrid suburb of Pozuelo. Emergency services confirmed his death upon arrival, citing injuries incompatible with life.

According to El Mundo, Portnov was behind the wheel of a Mercedes when two or three assailants ambushed him. They allegedly fired five shots, hitting him in the back and neck before delivering a final shot to the head after he collapsed face down. Ukrainian outlets Suspilne, Ukrainska Pravda, and RBK-Ukraine also confirmed the incident.

Who was Andrii Portnov

Portnov served in the administration of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and was appointed first deputy head of the Presidential Administration in January 2014. After Yanukovych fled Ukraine, Portnov also left the country and spent five years abroad. He was placed under EU sanctions from 2014 to 2015, initially residing in Russia before relocating to Vienna, where he practiced law. He returned to Ukraine in 2019.

From August 27 to October 5, 2018, Portnov headed the pro-Russian TV channel NewsOne. According to a 2020 report by UkraineWorld (a project of Internews Ukraine), he actively worked to discredit Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and subsequent pro-European reforms, while promoting anti-Western narratives using online bots.

In December 2021, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on Portnov and the Andrii Portnov Foundation under the Magnitsky Act, banning him from entering the U.S. and freezing all U.S.-based assets. He was sanctioned for alleged involvement in large-scale corruption and human rights violations.

According to investigative outlet Schemes, Portnov left Ukraine on June 3, 2022, via a border crossing in Zakarpattia. The same source reported that his son and nephew, Ihor Portnov (29) and Ivan Poddubnov, left Ukraine in March 2022 as registered volunteers and never returned. Journalists in Lviv later revealed that Portnov’s son may have used falsified documents to leave the country.

In February of this year, Portnov filed a lawsuit against Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) and the civil society group CHESNO, demanding they stop labeling him a “traitor.”