Spain: Police investigate letter bombs sent to Ukrainian embassy and arms manufacturing company

Police in Spain are looking into a possible link between two letter bombs sent to the Ukrainian ambassador in Madrid and an arms company that makes rocket launchers donated to Kiev, police confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.

In the first incident, an officer of the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid was injured when he opened a letter bomb addressed to the ambassador. Kiev ordered increased security measures at all embassies abroad.

The letter, which arrived by regular mail and was not scanned, caused "a very small wound" on his finger when the officer opened it in the embassy courtyard, Mercedes Gonzalez, a Spanish government official, told Telemadrid television.

Ambassador Serhii Pohoreltsev told Ukrainian news site European Pravda that the suspicious package addressed to him was delivered to the embassy commander, a member of Ukrainian staff.

"The package contained a box, which aroused suspicion in the commander who decided to take it outside - without people around - and open it," Ambassador Pohoreltsev was quoted as saying.

"After opening the box and hearing a click, he dropped it and then heard the explosion. Despite not having the box in his hand at the time of the explosion, the commander injured his hands and suffered a concussion."

Hours later, an arms company in Zaragoza, northeastern Spain, received a similar package, police confirmed.

Zaragoza government representative Rosa Serrano said in an interview with the SER station that the two envelopes appeared to have the same sender, as the same e-mail address was written on the back of both. Ms Serrano said the packages came from Ukraine and this alerted the arms company, which called the police.

The arms company is Instalaza, the manufacturer of the C90 missile that Spain is donating to Ukraine.

After the first incident, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba ordered all of Kiev's embassies abroad to "urgently" strengthen security and asked Spain to investigate the attack, a ministry spokesman said.

The Ukrainian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the second incident.

Ambassador Pohoreltsev later told TVE that he was working as usual at the embassy "without fear".

"We have instructions from the ministry in Ukraine that given the situation we are prepared for any kind of incident, any kind of Russian activity abroad," he said.

Spain's Supreme Court has opened an investigation into the attack as a possible case of terrorism, a judicial source said./ VOA