Date Published: 01/12/2022
ARCHIVED - Ukrainian services in Spain targeted with letter bombs
Explosive packages have been sent to the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, an arms manufacturing company and a military air base
Several official buildings in Spain with strong ties to Ukraine have been targeted by letter bombs in the past few hours and at least one of the incidents is being treated as a terrorist attack by the National Court. The Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, an arms manufacturing company in Zaragoza and the Torrejón de Ardoz air base, also in Madrid, have all received packages containing explosives, although thankfully only one minor injury has been reported.
It has also been confirmed that the President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, received a similar package last week containing a substance similar to those used in pyrotechnics, but he was unharmed, and another arrived at the US Embassy in Spain.
The attack on the Ukraine Embassy occurred at lunch time on Wednesday November 30 when a letter exploded in the hands of an employee. According to police sources, the letter, which was addressed to the ambassador himself, hadn’t been passed through the scanner and slightly injured one of the worker’s fingers.
The Police have activated the anti-terrorist protocol and the area was cordoned off until it could be cleared by Tedax, officers specialised in the deactivation of explosives.
Later that same afternoon, police were called to the headquarters of the Instalaza arms manufacturing company in Zaragoza after a suspicious package, similar to the one intended for the Ukrainian Ambassador, was discovered.
Tedax and Guardia Civil personnel deactivated the bomb in a controlled explosion and no injuries or material damages were reported.
Officials believe Instalaza was targeted because it manufactures the missile launchers that the Ukrainian Army uses against Russia, 1,370 of which were dispatched from Spain at the beginning of the war.
Another envelope was received at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base in Madrid between 3am and 4am on Thursday morning, December 1. Security in this case put the package through an X-ray scanner and determined that it contained some sort of mechanism, and the experts were called in.
The area has been secured and officers are currently examining the envelope, but no explosion has occurred, leading officials to question whether there is in fact a connection between this device and the first two.
So far, it appears that only the attack on the Ukrainian Embassy is being treated as terrorism, and the National Police have increased security around its perimeter.
In the midst of a huge Ukrainian counteroffensive in Donetsk and other occupied areas of the country, the Russian Embassy in Madrid has denied any involvement in the letter bombs, stating that any and all terrorist acts are “totally reprehensible”.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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