This comes after similar tactics were employed at the Ukrainian embassy in Spain on Wednesday. The Ukrainian embassy in Madrid was sent a letter that exploded when the embassy’s manager opened it, injuring them. He was hospitalized but his life wasn’t in danger.
The targets expanded beyond the embassy. Spain’s interior ministry said in a statement on Thursday that a “pyrotechnical” substance was sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on November 24, but it was detected and neutralized by the security services before it reached the Spanish leader.
The explosive packages were also sent to the U.S. embassy in Madrid, an arms manufacturer in the northern city of Zaragoza and a European Union satellite center located at the Torrejón de Ardoz airbase. Initial investigations say that the packages were likely sent from within Spain.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday that Ukrainian embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Austria were sent letters with animal eyes in them, and covered in a liquid. The ambassador’s residence at the Vatican was also vandalized.
In a Facebook post, Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said: “Ukrainian embassies and consulates continue to receive threats.”
“After the terrorist attack in Spain to embassies in Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Austria, Consulates General in Naples and Krakow, the consulates in Brno received covered packages. The packages contained animal eyes,” he added. “The packages themselves were impregnated with a liquid of characteristic color and had a corresponding smell. We study the meaning of this message.
“The entrance to the ambassador’s residence in the Vatican was vandalized, the embassy in Kazakhstan received a message of a mine that was later unconfirmed.”
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the letters “a well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation.”
“Not being able to stop Ukraine on the diplomatic front, they try to intimidate us. However, I can immediately say that these attempts are futile. We will continue to effectively work for Ukraine’s victory,” Kuleba added.
After the discovery of the first package earlier this week, Kuleba said that whoever was responsible for the letters “will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work on strengthening Ukraine and countering Russian aggression.”
As a result of the explosive and threatening letters, all Ukrainian embassies and consulates are now on “a mode of enhanced security measures,” the foreign ministry said.
“We urge foreign governments to guarantee maximum protection of Ukrainian diplomatic institutions in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the Facebook statement said.
After the letters were discovered in Spain on Thursday, the Russian embassy in Madrid released a statement on Twitter condemning them. “We declare that any threat or terrorist act, even more so directed against a diplomatic mission, is totally reprehensible,” the embassy tweeted.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment on the letters in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.
After several setbacks on the battlefield in the east and south of Ukraine, Russia has been bombing the country’s critical energy infrastructure.
“Ukrainian diplomats will continue to work successfully on strengthening Ukraine’s defense capability and providing Ukrainians with the necessary energy equipment to survive the winter,” the foreign ministry said.
