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Police probing firebomb attack on Russian embassy

A diplomat's car was burned after a firebomb was hurled into the territory of the Russian embassy in Minsk on Monday night, BelaPAN reports.

According to Alyaksandr Lastowski, spokesman for the city police department, a police detail discovered that the Mazda 3 was on fire at around 10:20 p.m.

A 0.3-liter glass bottle containing traces of a flammable substance and another bottle's fragments with a wick were found by police experts at the scene, the spokesman said.

He said that investigators continued working at the scene on Tuesday morning. Criminal proceedings have been instituted under the Criminal Code's article that penalizes hooliganism in connection with the incident.

The police said that the attack had been perpetrated by two people.

The Belarusian foreign ministry rushed to denounce the attack, expressing "concern and indignation."

"This criminal and vandal act is directed against common sense and Belarusian-Russian relations," Andrey Savinykh, spokesman for the ministry, said on August 31.

"We expect the culprits to receive severe punishment in accordance with law," Mr. Savinykh said.