Spain probes letter bombs to PM’S office
THE U.S. EMBASSY IN MADRID RECEIVED A LETTER SIMILAR TO THE FIVE LETTER BOMBS SENT TO UKRAINE’S EMBASSY TO SPAIN AND OTHER TARGETS IN THE COUNTRY, LOCAL MEDIA REPORTED.
MADRID/MOSCOW: Spanish police were investigating on Thursday a series of letter bombs sent to targets including the prime minister and the US embassy, similar to one which went off at the Ukrainian embassy, hurting a staff member.
The interior ministry revealed that an envelope with “pyrotechnic material” had arrived at Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s official residence on November 24. It was destroyed in a controlled explosion.
Spain’s High Court meanwhile announced it had broadened an initial investigation over the Ukraine embassy letter bomb to cover the all the other incidents.
Both announcements came a day after the security officer at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid suffered a light injury to one hand while opening a letter bomb addressed to the Ukrainian ambassador, an incident that prompted Kyiv to boost security at its embassies worldwide.
That letter, like the others discovered, arrived by regular mail.
Later in the evening, a second “suspicious postal shipment” was intercepted at the headquarters of military equipment firm Instalaza in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, the interior ministry said. Instalaza makes the grenade launchers that Spain donates to Ukraine.
Then on Thursday morning letter bombs arrived and at the defence ministry; and at an air base in Torrejon de Ardoz, just outside Madrid, from where weapons donated by Spain are sent to Ukraine.
“The characteristics of the envelopes, as well as their content, are similar in the five cases,” Spain’s secretary of state of security, Rafael Perez, told journalists.
The Twitter account of the Russian embassy in Spain posted a statement on Thursday condemning “any threat or terrorist act” in relation to the letter bombs.
“Any threat or terrorist act, particularly directed at a diplomatic mission, are to be totally condemned,” the statement said.
Russia says US, Nato are direct participants in war
Russia’s foreign minister on Thursday accused the West of becoming directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine by supplying it with weapons and training its soldiers.
Sergei Lavrov also said that Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities and other key infrastructure that have left millions without power, heating and water were intended to weaken Ukraine’s military potential and derail the shipments of Western weapons.
“You shouldn’t say that the US and Nato aren’t taking part in this war, you are directly participating in it,” Lavrov said in a video call with reporters. “And not just by providing weapons but also by training personnel. You are training their military on your territory, on the territories of Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries.”
He said that the barrage of Russian missile strikes was intended to “knock out energy facilities that allow you to keep pumping deadly weapons into Ukraine in order to kill the Russians.”
“The infrastructure that is targeted by those attacks is used to ensure the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces and the nationalist battalions,” Lavrov said.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of targeting key civilian infrastructure in order to reduce morale and force Ukraine into peace talks on Moscow’s conditions. Lavrov insisted that Moscow remains open for talks on ending the conflict.