Suspicious packages, including blood-stained envelopes containing “animal eyes”, have been sent to Ukrainian embassies and consulates in several European cities, the country’s foreign ministry said.
Kiev’s embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Austria and the consulates general in Naples and Krakow have received such packages, Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry, said on Facebook on Friday. Ukrainian.
The packages were “soaked in a liquid of a characteristic color and had a corresponding smell,” he said. “We are looking into the meaning of this message.”
Friday’s statement came after Wednesday’s explosion at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid, injuring a Ukrainian employee who was handling a letter addressed to the country’s ambassador to Spain. Spanish officials said Thursday a letter bomb was also sent to the country’s prime minister last week and another to the US embassy.
The Ukrainian consulate in Brno, a city in the southeast of the Czech Republic, was briefly evacuated on Friday after receiving a suspicious package containing animal tissue, Czech police added in a tweet on Friday.
Ukraine has put all of its diplomatic posts abroad under tight security after the suspicious mail massacre.
“We have reason to believe that there is a well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation of Ukrainian embassies and consulates,” said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Unable to stop Ukraine on the diplomatic front, they are trying to intimidate us.”
Kuleba urged foreign governments to guarantee maximum protection of Ukrainian diplomatic institutions in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
In addition to the suspicious packages, Nikolenko said the entrance to the Ambassador’s residence in the Vatican was vandalized and the Ukrainian embassy in Kazakhstan received a report of a bomb threat, which was later unconfirmed.
Nikolenko also stated that the Ukrainian embassy in the United States received a letter with a photocopy of an article critical of Ukraine. Most of the files were sent from Europe, he added.
Czech police tweeted that the consulate in Brno and its surroundings, including a kindergarten, were evacuated on Friday. After investigating the package, police said it did not contain explosives, adding that they had no information to suggest that people at the consulate or its neighborhood were at risk.
“Initial analysis shows that the package contained animal tissue. A detailed analysis will be conducted at the labs now,” the police tweeted.
