ATHENS, March 22. /TASS/. A grenade that unidentified individuals threw at a police booth outside the Consular Department of the Russian Embassy in Athens on Friday was a fragmentation defensive one, Theodoros Chronopoulos, a spokesman for the Ministry of Citizen Protection, informed TASS.

"At around 4am (5am Moscow time), unidentified individuals threw a defensive grenade at a police booth outside the Consular Department of the Russian Embassy in Athens. An explosion occurred - albeit a weak one - causing only insignificant material damage," he said.

He noted that the grenade exploded "in the street, not on the premises of the Consular Department. When asked whether he was sure that the object was a grenade, Chronopoulos answered in the affirmative. As for the investigation, it is too early to talk about that, he noted. "An investigation is being conducted by the police’s counterterrorism unit," the way it is in such cases, he explained.

He added that it was too early to connect the incident outside the Consular Department to a motorcycle, which was found torched in Athens’ Exarchia neighborhood. "The issue is being looked into, but it is too early to say anything on this score right now," Chronopoulos said.

A source in the Greek Interior Ministry earlier told TASS that the grenade explosion near the guard booth outside the Russian Embassy in Athens had been weak. According to the police, two individuals approached the booth on a motorcycle, threw a grenade at it and sped away. The source noted that an abandoned burned motorcycle had been found in Athens’ Exarchia neighborhood. The police are checking out whether this could be related to the incident outside the Russian Embassy’s Consular Department.

According to the Newsit.gr website, a similar attack on a police booth in Athens occurred in November 2016, when members of the Revolutionary Self-Defense Group threw a grenade at a police booth outside the French Embassy in Athens and fled to the Exarchia neighborhood on a motorcycle.

Vasily Gavrilov, the Russian Embassy’s press attache, earlier told TASS that unidentified individuals riding a motorcycle near the embassy’s Consular Department at around 3.30am threw an explosive device, presumably a grenade, at a police booth. He added that the area had been cordoned off by the police. An investigation is currently underway.