MOSCOW, April 6. /TASS/. A car-ramming attack at the entrance to the Russian Embassy’s building in Bucharest, should be classified as an "actual terrorist attack," Russian Ambassador to Romania Valery Kuzmin said on Wednesday.
A car rammed into the gates of the Russian Embassy in Bucharest in the early hours of Wednesday and subsequently burst into flames killing the driver behind the wheel. There were no other casualties reported in the attack.
According to pictures and videos posted earlier on Facebook (outlawed in Russia, owned by Meta Platforms, Inc. which is recognized as extremist in Russia), the burning vehicle was right in the front of the Russian Embassy's gates. Romanian TV channels cited their own sources that this was apparently a premeditated attack. According to some of them, the driver stopped in front of the gates and after a short exchange of words with on-duty security guards, he steered his car ahead, plowing into the gates.
"Actually, a terrorist attack was carried out today early in the morning, however, there are also many circumstances, which make this incident difficult to comprehend," he said during a live broadcast on the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Kuzmin noted that the driver of the car had several canisters in his sedan containing gasoline. After the perpetrator crashed into the gates of the Embassy building, on-duty police officers tried to drag him out of the car.
"However, he directly stated to them that he would set the gasoline on fire, which he did and burnt [himself] alive inside the car," Kuzmin specified.
The Russian diplomat also said that recently the Russian Embassy in Romania had repeatedly received direct threats and warnings, and he pointed out that the atmosphere was getting tense.
"The atmosphere here has been gradually heating up, becoming very tense. The Embassy has received numerous direct threats by email vowing to ‘bomb,' 'take revenge,' and so on," Kuzmin continued.
The diplomat added that on the night of April 5 he was summoned to the Romanian Foreign Ministry, where he was handed a note regarding the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats from the country.
"Yesterday, I was summoned by the Romanian Foreign Ministry, where I was told about terrible protests, multiple condemnations voiced in regard to the events in [Ukraine’s] Bucha," Kuzmin said. "I advised them to switch on the TV, which broadcasted a live session of the UN Security Council, where the Russian delegation was providing factual information and arguments."
"However, I was told in response that we had to proceed to another issue of today’s talks and was handed a note about the expulsion of 10 diplomats from our Embassy’s staff," the ambassador noted.
On March 29, a number of European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland, announced that they were kicking out Russian diplomats amid Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine. In particular, 21 Russian diplomats were expelled from Belgium, 17 from the Netherlands and four from Ireland. Earlier, a number of other EU states, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, also sent Russian diplomats home.