Letter bombs won’t stop Spanish support

Bomb disposal experts defused a letter bomb at the US Embassy in Madrid yesterday, one of at least six sent to high-profile targets apparently related to support for Ukraine.

The device was later detonated in a controlled explosion by police.

Five other devices were sent to various targets in the country, including one to the Ukrainian embassy that ignited, injuring a security officer, while the office of Pedro Snchez, the Spanish prime minister, also received a letter bomb.

According to Spain’s interior ministry, a suspicious package sent by ordinary mail and addressed to Snchez was “detected and neutralised” in a controlled explosion by the security department at his official residence on November 24.

“The letters and their contents were similar in the five cases,” said Rafael Prez, Spain’s secretary of state for security. Prez said that the five packages consisted of brown envelopes with what appeared to be incendiary mechanisms inside.

He added that the devices were designed to produce flames, rather than an explosion.

“There is evidence that they were sent from within Spain,” he added.

Yesterday, security staff at the defence ministry in Madrid detected a package containing an incendiary device, which was safely destroyed.

The defence ministry said Spanish security forces had also intercepted a letter bomb at an air force base in Torrejn de Ardoz, outside Madrid.

Prez said the device intercepted at the air base was deactivated without being destroyed, something that could help investigators to trace the origin of the material inside.

Margarita Robles, the Spanish defence minister, who was visiting the Ukrainian port city of Odessa yesterday, said that the letter bombs would not deter Spain from supporting Ukraine’s “just cause”.

The Spanish National Court is investigating the wave of letter bombs as possible crimes of terrorism.

Meanwhile, Russian shelling cut off power in the recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson, just days after it was restored amid Moscow’s ongoing drive to destroy key civilian infrastructure as freezing weather sets in.

In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned the capital’s millions of residents that they should stock up on water and preserved food to see them through a winter that could prove miserable if more energy infrastructure is damaged.

He also urged people to consider leaving the city to stay with friends or family elsewhere.