José Sena Goulão / Lusa
Paulo Rangel, Minister of Foreign Affairs
The decision is not new and was taken “temporarily, for a few days”, but the decision follows the conduct of other European and US embassies, which indicated a “threat of a significant air attack”.
“There is a closure, but a temporary closure,” he said. Paulo Rangelspeaking to journalists in São Paulo, on the sidelines of a visit with the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, to Casa de Portugal, tells Lusa.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs highlighted that “you cannot create the idea” that Portugal is removing people from Kievhighlighting that these temporary closures happened “dozens, if not hundreds of times” over the thousand days of the war in Ukraine.
Still, the decision comes at a time when several European and North American embassies are closing their embassies, in a period of escalating tension in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
According to , a US government source stated that the closure of the embassy was “related to the current threats of air attacks”.
The embassies of Italy, Greece and Spain reported that they had also closed their doors for security reasons. The French embassy remained open but urged its citizens to be cautious.
This Tuesday, Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to attack a weapons depot inside Russiamaking use of the authorization recently granted by the Joe Biden administration, on the thousandth day of war.
Today, “a message is being spread through messengers and social networks about threat of a ‘particularly massive’ missile and bomb attack against Ukrainian cities today,” Ukrainian spy agency GUR said in a statement seen by Reuters.
