Third Suspicious Package Arrives to Airfield in Madrid That Shares Intelligence Data With Ukraine

Thursday, 1 December 2022

A third explosive hidden inside a parcel has been sent to the military airfield in Torrejón de Ardoz near the capital of Spain, Madrid.

This is reported by the Spanish news outlet El Confidencial.

The Torrejón de Ardoz airfield has received a parcel with the characteristics that are similar to the package that was sent yesterday [30 November] to Ukraine’s Embassy in Madrid, where an employee of a diplomatic mission was injured, and to the company from Zaragoza which supplied missile systems to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has reported that the third suspicious package was detected between 03:00 and 04:00 on the morning of 1 December. Security systems of the Torrejón de Ardoz airfield detected a suspicious envelope which "could have contained some mechanism inside" under an X-ray scan. In order to ensure security, officers of the National Police and the National Guard went to the scene. The envelope was addressed to the Satellite Centre. 

The National Police have already started investigating this case.

In February, the European Union announced that they were mobilising the Satellite Centre at the Torrejón de Ardoz airfield to provide Ukraine with intelligence within military aid the EU is giving to Kyiv amid the Russian aggression. Moreover, Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has stated at a press conference after the meeting of the EU Defence Ministers that the EU has an intention to intensify the EU Satellite Centre in Madrid in order to assist with making decisions and taking actions in the context of the invasion of Ukraine. The centre’s mission is to provide aerial photos and satellite images after Kyiv asked the EU for such help. 

In the afternoon of Wednesday, 30 November, it became known that an employee of Ukraine’s Embassy in Madrid was slightly injured after an explosion in the building of the diplomatic establishment. This incident was preliminary qualified as a terrorist crime in Spain.

After this, Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, instructed to urgently strengthen the security of all Ukrainian embassies abroad and called on his Spanish counterpart to take immediate measures to investigate the attack on the Ukrainian diplomatic establishment.

The Spanish company Instalaza that produces weapons which the Spanish government sends to Ukraine in order to help fight the Russian forces also received a package, presumably with an explosive inside, on Wednesday, 30 November.

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