An employee at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid has sustained minor injuries after opening what is thought to have been a homemade letter bomb, prompting Kyiv to warn its diplomats to bolster their security precautions.
Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said the embassy in the Spanish capital had received an envelope as part of a mail delivery.
“During a check, the envelope exploded in the hands of the embassy’s manager,” Nikolenko told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “The manager received light injuries, he was hospitalised and is receiving the necessary medical assistance. His life isn’t in danger.” He said no other embassy workers had been hurt.
The employee was taken to the Hospital Nuestra Señora de América and discharged shortly afterwards.
According to Mercedes Gonzalez, the Spanish government’s representative in Madrid, the letter, which was not scanned, caused “a very small wound on the ring finger of the right hand” of the employee.
The Policía Nacional said they received a call from the Ukrainian embassy at 1.20pm on Wednesday, informing them that a letter had burst into flames while being handled by an employee. Officers were dispatched to the embassy, which is in north-east Madrid, to set up a perimeter at the scene while the Tedax bomb squad worked at the site.
Detectives, aided by forensic and intelligence investigators, are looking into the incident and an investigation will be led by Spain’s highest criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional.
Spain’s state news agency, Efe, cited unidentified police sources as saying the letter contained a homemade explosive and had been addressed to the ambassador but was opened by a security guard in the embassy’s garden.
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, urged all of the country’s embassies to tighten security measures.
The minister also urged his Spanish counterparts to take urgent measures to investigate the attack, adding that whoever was responsible “will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work on strengthening Ukraine and countering Russian aggression”.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report