In light of Wednesday’s incident in the Ukraine Embassy in Madrid in which a letter bomb explosion wounded one employee, eight Ukrainian embassies in Europe received parcels containing animal eyes, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry says.
The blood-soaked packages were sent to Ukraine embassies and consulates in Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Austria, and the Czech Republic, where the police confirmed packages were also found.
The area surrounding the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid was cordoned off again by the Spanish police after receiving the bloody package, while the Ukrainian embassy in Prague and the consulate in Brno, as Czech police said, contained animal tissue.
All the packages delivered to Ukraine embassies and consulates were impregnated with a liquid of characteristic color and had a corresponding smell.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko also noted that the embassy in the USA has received a letter containing a photocopy of an article critical of Ukraine whereas the embassy in Kazakhstan has received a spoof bomb threat.
Nikolenko said late on Friday that all parcels arrived synchronously with others from the territory of ‘one European country’, noting that Kyiv is cooperating with foreign law enforcers to investigate all the threats.
It is still not clear who sent the blood-soaked packages to Ukraine’s embassies and consulates.
However, considering that this was only the last one of a series of alleged incidents in Ukraine’s diplomatic missions – including vandalizing the entrance to the premises of the Ukrainian ambassador to the Vatican – Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba underscored that a well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation is taking place.
Apart from the incendiary package sent to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid on Wednesday, five letter bombs were sent in the last two days to various high-profile targets across Spain, including the US embassy in Madrid where the Spanish National Police activated anti-terrorist protocols after a letter bomb was delivered to the building.
Although Spain’s deputy interior minister Rafael Perez stressed that since all letters – brown envelopes with pyrotechnic material and a hand-made activation system – were apparently meant to cause a flare, but not an explosion so do not justify raising the terror-threat level in Spain, the Spanish National Court has opened an investigation into possible terrorism-related crimes.
Considering the nature of the targets of the letter bombs, they also raised suggestions of possible Russian involvement, something that Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, Sergi Pohoreltsev. seemed to be the first to hint at.
The Russian embassy in Madrid, however, condemned the incidents, stressing that any terrorist threat or act, even more so directed against a diplomatic mission, is totally reprehensible.