Spain: numerous devices found after Ukrainian Embassy blast
MADRID — Police in Spain detonated a suspicious parcel discovered at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spanish officials said Thursday, a day after a similar package sent to the Ukrainian Embassy ignited upon opening and injured an employee.
“We can confirm a suspicious package was received at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, and are aware of reports of other packages sent to other locations throughout Spain,” the American embassy said in a response to an Associated Press inquiry.
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“We are grateful to Spanish law enforcement for their assistance with this matter,” it added.
Spain’s police said the detonated parcel “contained substances similar to those used in pyrotechnics.”
The action followed police reporting that multiple explosive parcels were sent in Spain over the past two days.
Police said they were delivered to Spain’s Defense Ministry, a European Union satellite center located at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base outside Madrid and to an arms factory in northeastern Spain that makes grenades sent to Ukraine.
Authorities said a bomb squad also destroyed an explosive device that was dispatched by regular post to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Nov. 24.
Spain’s interior ministry, which is charge of the country’s police forces, said that the envelope intercepted at the American embassy’s security screening point was “of similar characteristics as the previous ones.”
It was then detonated by authorities after a wide area was cordoned off by Spanish police around the embassy in the center of Spain’s capital.
Spanish authorities have yet to determine who was responsible for the letters or link them to the war in Ukraine.
The Russian Embassy in Madrid on Thursday condemned the letter bombs, saying in a tweet that “any threat or terrorist attack, especially those directed at diplomatic missions, are totally condemnable.”
The package sent to the Ukrainian Embassy was addressed to the country’s ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoreltsev.
The employee handling it was slightly injured when it burst into flames.
In an interview Wednesday following the blast, ambassador Pohoreltsev told European Pravda, a news website linked to the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, that the explosion could have been more serious but for the professional behavior of the injured employee.
The embassy employee was treated for light wounds on his hand and later returned to work.
