Spain probes four incendiary devices after embassy explosion
The police in Spain are investigating four more incendiary devices and letter bombs, a day after one exploded at Ukraine's embassy in Madrid.
Devices have been sent to the prime minister, the defence ministry, an arms company that makes rocket launchers donated to Kyiv, and a military airbase near the Spanish capital, as well as the one found at the embassy.
The first letter bomb exploded when it was opened by an embassy employee on Wednesday, causing minor injuries to the worker's hands and prompting Ukraine to warn its diplomats to bolster their security precautions.
The second, discovered hours later at the Instalaza weapons company in Zaragoza in the Aragn region of C 90 rocket launchers, was deactivated by bomb squad officers.
The security systems there detected a suspicious package and police were called to the Torrej n de Ardoz airbase in the early hours of Thursday.
On Thursday morning, it emerged that an incendiary device addressed to the prime minister, Pedro S nchez, had been intercepted on November 24. Another device was sent to the defence ministry, according to the interior ministry. It appeared to have been sent from Spain.
A spokesman for the interior ministry said X-rays had shown that the envelope sent to the base Torrej n de Ardoz contained some kind of mechanism.
Officers from both the Guardia Civil and the Polic a Nacional went to the base to seal off the area and police investigators are analysing the envelope, which was addressed to the satellite centre, he said.
Serhii Pohoreltsev, Ukraine's ambassador to Spain, said the first suspicious package had been addressed to him and handed over to the embassy's commandant.
The package contained a box that raised the commandant's suspicions and he decided to take it outside, with no one in the vicinity, and open it, Pohoreltsev told Ukrainian news site European Pravda.
The employee was taken to the Hospital Nuestra Se ora de Am rica and discharged shortly after.
Rosa Serrano, the Spanish central government spokesman for Arag n, said the arms company in Zaragoza contacted the police after receiving a letter it had not been expecting.
Serrano told the SER radio station that it was an envelope measuring 10 cm by 15 cm and a little more than a centimetre thick.
The envelope was examined and found to contain a small charge that was designed to cause an explosion when it was opened. We don't know what kind of explosive it was. After the discovery of the first package, Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, urged all of the country's embassies to tighten their security measures.
The minister has urged his Spanish counterparts to take urgent measures to investigate the attack, saying thatwhoever was responsible will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work on strengthening Ukraine and countering Russian aggression.