Spain: Suspected author of blown up letters to Ukrainian embassy or Pedro Sanchez arrested

According to a police source, the alleged author of a series of letters with bombs addressed late last year to the Ukrainian embassy in Spain or to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been detained.

The man, a “74-year-old pensioner”, was arrested in Miranda de Ebro in northern Spain, the source said, without giving details. A security officer at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid was slightly wounded in the right hand while opening one of these letters intended for the ambassador.

Letters were also sent to the Minister of Defense, to the weapons company that makes the grenade launchers Madrid donated to Kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion, or to an important Spanish military base.

Spanish justice began an investigation into alleged acts of “terrorism”, and Kyiv ordered to strengthen security in all its offices.

According to the US daily The New York Times, US and European intelligence agencies suspect the Russian paramilitary group Imperial Russian Movement (MIR) of involvement in the letter bomb campaign.

Former city hall official

Designated as a US terrorist organization in 2020, this group of ultra-nationalists and white supremacists would operate undercover in the interests of the Russian military intelligence (GRU), according to a US daily newspaper article published on Sunday.

But, according to sources cited by El Païs, the arrested man has Spanish citizenship and worked as a civil servant in Vitoria City Hall until his retirement. The corollary indicates that he would have acted alone and was not affiliated with any group. On Wednesday morning, police raided his home in the city of Burgos.

The Spanish Interior Ministry declined to comment on this information.