The alleged author of a series of trap letters sent late last year to the Ukrainian embassy in Spain and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, for which Kyiv condemns Moscow, was arrested on Wednesday in northern Spain, AFP reports.

“This morning, national police officers arrested a man of Spanish nationality in Miranda de Ebro (north), believed to be the author of six letters containing explosives in late November and early December,” the carrier said, according to the Spanish ministry. Interior.

The trap letters were addressed to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish Defense Minister, the Ukrainian Embassy in Spain, the US Embassy in Spain and the arms company that made the grenade launchers provided by Madrid to Kyiv at the start of the invasion. and a large Spanish military base.

According to the spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “the operation (…) is ongoing, the house of the detainee is being searched.”

A police source told AFP the man was a “74-year-old pensioner”.

During the disclosure of one of the letters addressed to the Ukrainian ambassador to Spain, on November 30, an officer of the embassy’s security service was lightly wounded in the right hand. Other letters were intercepted by special services.

Spanish justice has launched a “terrorism” investigation, and Kyiv has ordered increased security at all its embassies after a letter bomb at its embassy in Madrid was called an “attack” by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.

Ukraine blames Russia

Ambassador of Ukraine to Spain Serhiy Pogoreltsev accused Russia of involvement in the explosive letter sent to him.

“We know very well the terrorist methods of the aggressor country,” he said on Spanish public television.

“Russia’s methods, its attacks force us to be ready for any incidents, provocations or attacks,” he added.

The Russian Embassy in Spain condemned the sending of trap letters.

“In view of the information about the explosive packages sent to the Embassy of Ukraine in Spain and official Spanish structures, we declare that any threat or terrorist act, moreover, directed against the diplomatic representation, is absolutely reprehensible,” the message of the Russian embassies

They say that the Russian imperial movement is behind the trap letters

On Sunday, The New York Times reported, citing U.S. officials, that U.S. and European intelligence agencies suspect the Russian paramilitary group the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) of being behind a series of trap letters.

This ultra-nationalist and white supremacist group, which was designated a US terrorist organization in 2020, operated under cover for Russia’s military secret services (GRU), a US newspaper claims.

“Key members of the group went to Spain, and Spanish police revealed its ties to far-right Spanish organizations,” writes the New York Times.

What is the imperial Russian movement

According to the newspaper, the campaign was organized to “test” the ability of these groups to act in the event of an escalation of the conflict.

“It’s like a warning shot,” Nathan Sales, a former counterterrorism coordinator at the US State Department, told the NYT.

Spain’s Interior Ministry declined to comment on the information when asked by AFP.

According to Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), the Russian Imperial Movement was founded in 2002 and has been fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas since 2014.

He maintains “contacts with neo-Nazi and white racist groups in Europe and the United States” and “provides paramilitary training for Russian citizens and members of like-minded people in other countries.”

Read here the most important information from 336th day of the war in Ukraine