52-year-old Ukrainian lawyer Andriy Portnov was shot dead on May 21 near the school where his daughters study in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Autonomous Community of Madrid). Three days earlier, he had visited Ukraine. Sources familiar with the investigation by the National Police of Spain confirmed reports in the Ukrainian press about Portnov’s meeting with members of Zelenskyy’s government.
Currently, the investigation is trying to establish a connection between Portnov’s death and his trip to Ukraine and meetings there.
Advisor to former President Viktor Yanukovych, Andriy Portnov, who held anti-European and pro-Russian views, left Ukraine in June 2022, four months after the start of the war. He settled with his family in Madrid and lived in an upscale residential complex with his children and wife Anastasiya Valyaeva, who also had connections with the Ukrainian government.
Investigators of the National Police studied the victim’s schedule, which was known to Portnov’s killers, and concluded that "in some cases, he took people he trusted with him to provide security". However, he did not have professional security, which became apparent on the day of the murder.
He usually took his daughters to the American School, where the children of diplomats, football players, and other wealthy individuals study. The killers, having studied his movements, decided that this was the best place for an attack since they could quickly escape the crime scene.
Currently, the police are searching for three individuals: the shooter and two accomplices who disappeared in the Casa de Campo park after committing the crime. Investigators believe that they escaped not on a motorcycle, as initially thought, and not by metro, but in a car they had specifically prepared for this purpose.
The investigation is proceeding slowly, under conditions of complete secrecy by the officers of the homicide investigation and information department of the National Police, who are trying to reconstruct all events preceding and following the murder to find the criminals.
The fact that Portnov did not have permanent security but occasionally sought the services of trusted individuals suggests that he felt safe in Spain, where apparently few knew about his life. However, last year he made a mistake.
He wanted to register his estate on the outskirts of Kyiv in the village of Kozyn, worth 2.5 million euros, in the name of his four children. It is a large estate on the banks of the Dnipro River. According to Radio Liberty, for this, Portnov contacted a notary office in Madrid, which then sent the documents to Ukraine, where the transaction was handled by his lawyer, Maryna Parinova. Through this financial transaction, his location became known.