Ukrainian ex-top official shot dead outside Madrid school

A former leading Ukrainian official has been shot dead outside an American school in the Spanish capital Madrid, reports say.

The 51-year-old man, named by Ukrainian and Spanish sources as Andriy Portnov, had just dropped his children off at the school in the Pozuelo de Alarcón area of the city, reports say.

An unidentified attacker fired several shots at the victim before fleeing into a wooded area in a nearby public park, Spanish reports said.

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

He left Ukraine after the revolution, and in 2021 he was sanctioned by the US Treasury, which said he had been “widely known as a court fixer” who had taken steps to control the judiciary and undermine reform efforts.

It was not clear who was behind the shooting that took place at about 09:15 local time (07:15 GMT) on Wednesday, reportedly as children were still entering the school.

A similar gun attack took place in 2018 outside a British Council school a few kilometres away.