“Around 1:00 p.m. today (12:00 GMT) the National Police have received notice of a deflagration at the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid. The same has occurred when one of the embassy workers manipulates a letter“Police sources told AFP.
“The worker has turned out injured, initially slightlyand has gone on his own foot to a hospital center,” they continued.
“The National Police is already investigating the facts, with the participation of the Scientific Police”they added.
The employee was injured in one hand and left the hospital in the afternoon, the Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoreltsev, later said in an interview with Spanish public television.
By your side, The Spanish justice opened preliminary proceedings to investigate a possible crime of “terrorism”indicated a spokesman for the high court of the National Court, competent in the matter.
The Spanish authorities did not mention any leads at the moment.
Questioned on purpose, the Ukrainian ambassador implicitly pointed to Russia. “We know the terrorist methods of the aggressor country. The methods, the Russian attacks force us to be prepared for any type of incident, of provocation”said the diplomat.
According to AFP journalists at the scene, the police deployed a security cordon around the embassy, located in a residential neighborhood of Madrid.
A police van blocked access to the street and numerous officers and firefighters monitored the area. The cordon was finally lifted shortly after 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT).
In a statement, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, stated that he had contacted his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, as well as the Ukrainian ambassador in Spain, to inquire about the state of health of the injured employee and convey his “support and solidarity” after this “attack”.
Strengthening security at Ukrainian embassies
After the explosion of the letter bomb, Ukraine ordered to “strengthen security” of all its embassies.
“The minister Dmytro Kuleba has ordered to strengthen the security of all Ukrainian embassies. It has also asked the Spanish authorities to urgently investigate this attack,” the spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Twitter. Oleg Nikolenko.
According to the government delegate for the Madrid region, Mercedes González, the injured worker was the embassy security officer, who was surprised while opening a letter “addressed to the ambassador himself” and brought by the “postman who comes every day to the embassy.”
“The person in charge of security, who is the person who usually opens the correspondence (…), has proceeded to open that envelope in the garden of the embassy itself”, when the explosion occurredcausing “a small wound on his right hand,” González explained on local television Telemadrid.
This Wednesday, before 7:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. GMT), “a suspicious postal shipment was also detected at the headquarters of the Instalza (weaponry) company, in Zaragoza (northeast)” and explosive disposal police units (TEDAX) “have carried out a controlled explosion of the device,” said a source from the Ministry of the Interior.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Spanish government of socialist Pedro Sánchez has sent aid to kyiv, especially military. It recently also sent electricity generators to counter Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Sánchez traveled to kyiv in April to express his solidarity with the government of President Volodimir Zelenski.
Source: Ambito
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