Who was the former High Ukrainian official killed near a school in Spain. The connection with Sergei Lavrov's close circle
Andrii Pornov, who was a top counselor of former Ukrainian president Pro-Rus Viktor Yanukovici, was assassinated on Wednesday, in a rich neighborhood outside Madrid, after leaving his children at school. The former politician was a controversial figure in Ukrainian politics.
Portnov was 51 years old. The former politician fled from Ukraine during the 2014 “Euro-Maidan” Revolution, but returned five years later, after Volodimir Zelenski was elected President of Ukraine, reports the Independent Meduza news site, which presents a portrait of the former politician.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions against Pornov in 2021, invoking accusations of corruption and bribe. Then he fled again from Ukraine, after the beginning of the war in 2022, despite the restrictions during the war imposed on the old recruitment men.
Controversial figure in Ukrainian policy
Portnov was shot several times as he got in the car, in front of the US school in the Pozuelo neighborhood of Madrid of unidentified armed men, according to the Spanish press. He País reported that two or three attackers fled from the scene after shootings.
According to El Mundo, the police suspect that the murder could be linked either to an organized crime group that “regulates accounts” or has been politically motivated.
Born in Luhansk, Portnov was a lawyer. He moved to Kiev in the late 1990s, where he began to work for the National Securities Commission and the stock market. He was elected in the Ukrainian Parliament in 2006 as a member of a political block led by the then prime minister, Iulia Timoshenko. Subsequently, Portnov led Timoshenko's legal team and defended his interests in court, including several procedures against former Ukrainian president Viktor Iușcenko.
In 2010, Portnov joined the administration of Viktor Yanukovici, who had succeeded Iușcenko as president. Ianukovici appointed Deputy Pornov of his head of office and contact person for judicial reform.
After Ianukovici's removal in February 2014, Pornov fled to Russia and then moved to Austria. Subsequently, he told Ukrainska Pravda that Janukovici's working group was a “big mistake”.
The Ukrainian authorities opened several criminal investigations against Portnov after he fled the country, including for high treason, abuse of office and hijacking funds. Portnov, who was subsequently subject to EU sanctions, denied all the charges against him.
Pornov returned to Ukraine in 2019, shortly after Zelenski was elected president. “Friends, I have not been to my country for more than five years. And today I want to give a confidence signal to thousands of people who have left Ukraine. It is time to return, to build and to restore,” he wrote on Telegram at the time.
After returning to Ukraine, Pornov “developed the image of a person close to Zelenski's team” due to his friendship with Andriy Bohdan, then Zelenski's office, and his connections with the campaign funders. However, Zelenski publicly denied that Pornov had any influence on his administration.
In 2021, the US Treasury sanctioned Portnov for corruption, due to the influence of Pornov on the Ukrainian judicial system.
“Since 2019, Pornov has taken measures to control the Ukrainian judicial system, influence the legislation, place loyal officials in management positions and buy judicial decisions,” accuses US Treasury.
The connection with Lavrov's friends
In June 2022, the journalists from Schemes, an investigative project carried out by Radio Free Europe Ukraine, showed that Pornov's family owned luxury real estate in Moscow together with friends of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Pornov also had the reputation to understand and frequently gain defamation processes against Ukrainian media.
In December 2024, the Ukrainian media network Mediakh publicly urged President Zelenski to propose sanctions against Pornov, citing journalistic investigations that supported his continuous influence on the Ukrainian judicial system.
