Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday his country’s diplomatic missions had recently received 31 suspicious or threatening packages – and that the packages appeared to have been sent from Germany.
Ukraine said last week that “bloody packages” containing animal eyes covered in a pungent liquid had been sent to a significant number of its missions in Europe.
What do we know so far?
Kuleba said the return address for each of the envelopes was the same — a Tesla dealership in the German town of Sindelfingen in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg.
“Typically, the shipment was made from post offices that were not equipped with CCTV systems,” Kuleba wrote.
“Criminals have also taken precautions not to leave DNA traces on the packaging. This is precisely what speaks for the professional implementation.”
Kuleba said the most recently received packages had been to embassies in Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Denmark over the past two days, as well as to the Ukrainian consulate in the northern Polish city of Gdansk.
“In total we already have 31 cases in 15 countries: Austria (1), Vatican (1), Denmark (1), Spain (5), Italy (4), Kazakhstan (1), Netherlands (1), Poland (6) , Portugal (2), Romania (2), USA (1), Hungary (2), France (1), Croatia (1), Czech Republic (2),” Kuleba wrote on Facebook.
The foreign minister said he was working with colleagues in other countries on investigations amid suspicions that the incidents were linked to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
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Kuleba said Ukrainian embassies and consulates have been “working under heightened security measures” for the past week with the help of pyrotechnicians and forensic scientists.
“I can think of no case in history where so many embassies and consulates of any country have been subjected to such mass attacks in such a short period of time,” Kuleba wrote.
“But no matter how hard the enemies try to intimidate Ukrainian diplomacy, they will not succeed. We will continue to work for victory.”
The bloody packages arrived soon after a letter bomb detonated at the Ukrainian embassy in Spain and police defused other envelopes that were being sent to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sachez, among others.
rc/aw (Portal, AFP)