A letter bomb injured a security officer at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid on Wednesday. Following the incident, Kyiv has to ordered greater security at all its representative offices abroad. The letter arrived by regular mail and was not scanned. Mercedes Gonzalez, a Spanish government official, told broadcaster Telemadrid that the letter bomb caused “a very small wound” on one finger of the officer who opened it.
Local media reported that an arms company in Zaragoza, northeastern Spain, also received a similar package. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba ordered all of Kyiv’s embassies abroad to “urgently” strengthen security and urged Spain to investigate the attack, a ministry spokesman said.
He said that the perpetrators “will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work on strengthening Ukraine and countering Russian aggression.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to Madrid, Serhii Pohoreltsev, did not give details of how the letter had been handled. However, he said that the injured worker had followed protocol and the embassy will try and improve the process followed.
Spain’s High Court has opened a probe into the attack as a possible case of terrorism, a judicial source said.
Pohoreltsev later said, “We have instructions from the ministry in Ukraine that given the situation we have to be prepared for any kind of incident… any kind of Russian activities outside the country.”
The arms company in Zaragoza that reportedly also received a similar letter has been identified as Instalanza, the manufacturer of the C90 rocket launcher that Spain donates to Ukraine. A contained explosion was carried out in the factory and no damage was reported, according to the same media.
The residential area surrounding the embassy in northwestern Madrid was cordoned off and a bomb disposal unit was deployed to the scene.
(With inputs from agencies)
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