Spanish police stand outside of the Ukrainian embassy after a blast at the building injured one employee who was handling a letter in Madrid, Spain.
Reuters
Ukrainian embassies in Europe have gotten packages with “animal eyes,” in them, an official said.
A Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said he is “studying the meaning of this message.”
This comes after an apparent bomb inside an envelope exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid.
Ukrainian embassies and consulates in countries across Europe have received blood-soaked packages with “animal eyes” in them in the aftermath of the explosion of an apparent letter bomb at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid, according to Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry.
“The packages contained animal eyes,” Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a Facebook post on Friday.
Nikolenko said that the packages were soaked in a liquid that had a distinct color and “had a corresponding smell.”
“We are studying the meaning of this message,” Nikolenko said in the post, according to a translation from Reuters.
The gruesome packages were received by the Ukrainian embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Austria, Nikolenko said.
The Ukrainian consulates general in Naples, Italy, Krakow, Poland, and the Czech Republic city of Brno also received the same packages, Nikolenko said.
In another Facebook post, Nikolenko said that the Embassy of Ukraine in Madrid, Spain, also got a blood-stained package “like those previously received to other Ukrainian diplomatic institutions.”
This comes after an apparent bomb concealed inside an envelope exploded at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid on Wednesday, injuring a worker handling the letter, officials said.
“We have reasons to consider what’s going on a well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation of embassies and consulates of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
“Not being able to stop Ukraine on the diplomatic front, they try to intimidate us,” Kuleba said, adding that the attempts are “futile.”
“We will continue to effectively work for Ukraine’s victory,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nikolenko said there were other incidents in addition to the bloody packages.
The entrance to the ambassador’s residence in the Vatican was vandalized and the Ukrainian embassy in the United States received “a letter with a photocopy of a critical article about Ukraine,” according to Nikolenko. The letter came with others from Europe, he said.
“We urge foreign governments to guarantee maximum protection of Ukrainian diplomatic institutions in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” Nikolenko said.
The incidents come amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nine-month-long war with Ukraine.