Videos of a drone strike at a military installation in Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria surfaced on Sunday. A helicopter was ignited and burst into flames, according to local officials. Russia and Ukraine have both been accused of causing ‘panic’ in the area. The Bureau of Reintegration issued a statement saying it could not confirm the incident, calling it an “attempt to provoke fear and panic in the region”.
Drone strike in Transnistria, Moldova’s breakaway region
Videos of a drone strike at a military installation in Moldova‘s breakaway region Transnistria surfaced on Sunday. A helicopter was ignited and burst into flames, according to local officials. Russia and Ukraine have both been accused of causing ‘panic’ in the area. The Bureau of Reintegration issued a statement saying it could not confirm the incident, calling it an “attempt to provoke fear and panic in the region”.
Transnistria’s pro-Russia officials went on to blame Ukraine for the strike. Kyiv was quick to accuse Moscow of orchestrating the attack.
Moldova’s Bureau of Reintegration said that they are in touch with government institutions and are investigating visuals from the alleged strike. “After studying the footage and obtaining more information we can report that this incident is an attempt to provoke fear and panic in the region. The military equipment that can be seen in the footage has been decommissioned for the past several years,” the authority said on Sunday.
“The Moldovan government, which maintains contact with Ukraine, cannot confirm any attacks on the Transnistrian region,” it added. Moldova said that the equipment destroyed in the footage ‘has not worked for several years’.
Transnistria is a region supported by Russia. It declared independence from Moldova after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Moscow has about 1500 troops, as peacekeepers, in the breakaway land.
Only last month, Transnistrian lawmakers had met in the regional capital of Tiraspol, asking the Russian Duma to ‘implement measures for defending Transnistria amid increasing pressure from Moldova, given the fact that more than 220,000 Russian citizens reside in Transnistria’.
