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Livemint, Alka Jain

'Bloody packages’ containing animal eyes sent to Ukrainian embassies

Ukrainian embassies across Europe including Spain received bloody packages. (AP)

The incident has raised suspicion about links to Russia while also prompting Kyiv to ask for increased security at its overseas offices, The Washington Post reported.

A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman informed that the 'bloody packages' were received at embassies in the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Austria, as well as at consulates in Naples and Brno, in the Czech Republic.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has called these 'bloody packages' a 'well-planned' campaign of intimation and terror.

Yevhenia Voloshchenko, a Ukrainian official in Rome said the parcel received at her embassy contained a fish eye. Czech police said the envelope in Brno contained "animal tissue," adding that it had first been checked for explosives and prompted an evacuation of the immediate surroundings, including a kindergarten.

Earlier on Wednesday, a letter bomb that was opened at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid caused minor injuries to a security guard, Kiev has increased security at its embassies.

Six letter bombs have been sent this week to targets in Spain, including Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the U.S. Embassy to Madrid, prompting Spain to step up security.

Mercedes Gonzalez, a representative of the central government in Madrid, claimed that the letter, which had been delivered by regular mail, blew up as the guard opened it in the embassy garden.

"Fortunately it was not serious, the person has a small injury to his right hand. The letter was addressed to the ambassador," she said during an interview with TV station Telemadrid.

A security cordon was put in place by the police around the embassy, located in a leafy residential area in northern Madrid.

After the letter bomb went off, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, posted on social media that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had ordered the stepping up of security at all Ukrainian embassies.

Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has spoken with Ukraine's ambassador to Spain by telephone "to ask about the well-being of the Ukrainian worker who was injured," the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russia began a special military operation on February 24 in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics requested help defending themselves.

Russia has been facing immense pressure from the international community to stop its military operations in Ukraine which has created an immense humanitarian crisis with thousands of refugees from Ukraine fleeing to the neighboring countries to the West.

(With inputs from agencies)

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