Former Ukrainian politician shot dead on school run in Madrid
A key aide to a former Ukrainian president was shot dead on Wednesday morning outside an American school in Madrid.
Spain’s interior ministry confirmed Andriy Portnov, 51, a senior aide to Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych, died after he was shot taking his children to school in the affluent neighbourhood of Pozuelo at 9.15am (8.15 UK time) local time.
Police said witnesses had reported Portnov was shot “several times” in the head and body by more than one gunman when he was getting into his car, a black Mercedes Benz.
The assailants then fled on foot. Spanish media has reported investigators are looking for a tall, thin man who fled towards Casa de Campo.
A Spanish police source earlier told El Pais that a citizen reported finding a man “wounded, lying on the ground and unconscious”.
The source added: “One shot, the fatal one, was to the head, at the level of the neck, from behind but at an angle, and the other two to the body, in the abdomen and side.”
Luis Rayo, 19, who lives in a building next to the school, said that he was sleeping when he heard the sound of gunfire.
“I heard five bullets and then came here to see what happened,” Mr Rayo said.
Police are looking into two lines of inquiry: a politically motivated attack or a score-settling murder relating to organised crime, El Mundo reported.
The shooting, which took place as dozens of students were filing into the school in the morning, will be investigated by the Madrid Judicial Police Brigade’s Homicide Unit V, the outlet added.
After the 2014 regime change in Ukraine, Mr Portnov was placed on several sanctions lists by the West, including the EU and Canada, for his actions as part of the former administration.
He had been involved in the authoritarian crackdown against the Maidan Uprising, a wave of civil unrest in Ukraine sparked by Mr Yanukovych’s desires for close ties with Russia at the expense of the EU.
Mr Portnov, who challenged the sanctions placed upon him, was removed from the EU sanctions list in 2015, one year after being placed on it.
In 2021, he was added to the US sanctions list, the American embassy in Kyiv said.
The department said in a statement: “Widely known as a court fixer, Portnov was credibly accused of using his influence to buy access and decisions in Ukraine’s courts and undermining reform efforts. As of 2019, Portnov took steps to control the Ukrainian judiciary, influence associated legislation, sought to place loyal officials in senior judiciary positions, and purchase court decisions.”
Mr Portnov lived in Russia after the Yanukovych government was ousted, before moving to Vienna, Austria, where he practised law. He returned to Ukraine in May 2019.
In 2018, prosecutors opened an investigation into Mr Portnov for his alleged involvement in Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, shortly after Mr Yanukovych was ousted. Later that year, Ukraine’s SBU security service opened criminal proceedings into Mr Portnov relating to treason.
Both cases were closed after a pre-trial investigation, according to official letters published by Mr Portnov.
‘There is nothing left’: Three dead as southern France ravaged by floods
At least three people died after heavy rainstorms hit France’s Var region causing widespread flooding on Tuesday.
A couple in their 80s died in Le Lavandou on the coast, where the mayor described “scenes of war” after a “truly violent, nasty, incomprehensible phenomenon”.
Aged 85 and 84, the couple were swept away with their vehicle when trying to leave the area. The woman’s body remained trapped inside the wreckage as of Tuesday afternoon, Toulon public prosecutor Samuel Finielz said.
Another person died after becoming trapped in a car in Vidauban, according to local authorities. The 81-year-old was also swept away in her vehicle, and died after her vehicle dropped into a ditch on a submerged country road.
Only the driver was saved by a local councillor who happened to be there, Vidauban mayor Claude Pianetti said on Facebook, according to Le Parisien.
Reinforcements were sent, particularly from Bouches-du-Rhône and Alpes-Maritimes, to support the 200 firefighters who carried out around fifty operations, “including some for rescues and securing people,” the prefecture said.
The flooding has caused significant damage to the region in southeast France, causing power outages and damage to train tracks as water surged through the streets.
Roads and bridges suffered major damage in Le Lavandou, the commune’s mayor said. Le Lavandou sits around 30km (18 miles) east of St Tropez, and is a popular holiday spot on the French Riviera.
French forecaster Meteo France said an orange alert for thunderstorms and rain-flooding ended at 2pm in the Var region. Conditions are far more settled on Wednesday, with the rain making way for partial cloud, sun, and temperatures above 20 degrees, the forecaster’s website shows.
Gil Bernardi, mayor of Le Lavandou, said in a press conference according to Le Parisien that “255 mm of water fell in one hour, causing an enormous wave”, describing “torn-up roads” and “torn-down bridges”.
“There is nothing left, no electricity, no drinking water, no wastewater treatment plant,” the elected official also described.
The local prefecture on Tuesday began assessing the damage to the municipality, including “accessibility to drinking water, condition of the wastewater treatment plants, condition of the roads”. Authorities added that the La Môle/Saint-Tropez airfield was closed due to the flooding.
French president Emmanuel Macron extended his “heartfelt condolences” to the families and loved ones of those who died in the floods.
“To all those affected, I want to say that the Nation will be there, fraternal and united. There, with the relief forces, to overcome the coming hours. There, to rebuild,” he wrote on X.
Police probe Enoch Powell portrait in village shop as ‘hate incident’
A village shop is being investigated by police over the display of a portrait of Enoch Powell alongside his most controversial anti-immigration speech.
Mumfords, an ironmonger in Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, has a framed picture of the divisive former Tory MP in its window along with an excerpt of his 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech.
Shopkeeper Elizabeth Griffiths said she put the photograph in her window in February to highlight the “need for strong assertive leadership during tough political times”.
But West Mercia Police said it was treating the display as a “hate incident” after receiving a report on 16 May of “offensive content”.
Mr Powell caused a national political firestorm when he used inflammatory language to criticise immigration to the UK in a 45-minute speech to local Conservative members at a Birmingham hotel.
The former Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West said white British people would find themselves “strangers in their own country” as a result of migration.
He was sacked from the Conservative front bench for making the speech and it outraged his senior colleagues at the time.
A hate incident is any non-criminal offence that a victim thinks is motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person’s race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer was accused of copying Mr Powell’s words when he warned that the UK was becoming an “island of strangers” while vowing to crack down on immigration.
Sir Keir said he would “take back control” to slash the number of people coming to the UK as the country “risks becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together”.
Norwich South MP Clive Lewis said: “It’s simply not sustainable for the prime minister to echo the language of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech. This kind of language doesn’t just alienate communities, it drives people away from our country altogether.”
Downing Street rejected comparisons made with Mr Powell, who is a political hero of Reform leader Nigel Farage, and said Sir Keir “absolutely stands by” his language.
Ms Griffiths told The Independent the picture had been in her shop window since the first week of February and she had received “nothing but praise for all the time it has been there”.
She said it was put there alongside Sir Winston Churchill, St Francis of Assisi, “our Lord Jesus Christ”, Churchill mugs and books on Churchill and Donald Trump.
A West Merica Police spokesperson told The Independent: “On 16 May we received a report of offensive content displayed in a shop window on Church Street in Cleobury Mortimer.
“This is being treated as a hate incident and enquiries are ongoing.”