CHISINAU, April 12. /TASS/. The terrorist attacks thwarted by Transnistrian law enforcement officers in February could have led to renewed hostilities on the banks of the Dniester River and were ultimately targeted at Russia, Vadim Krasnoselsky, president of the unrecognized republic, said on Wednesday.
"The terrorist attacks that were prevented in Transnistria would have had very serious consequences, including irreversible ones, leading to aggression and hostilities, had they actually been carried out. I am convinced that by shedding the blood of Transnistrian people, who were the direct target of the attack, along with an OSCE mission in the city of Bendery on February 14, it is precisely the Russian Federation that [the terrorists] would have been hitting," Krasnoselsky said.
"[That is,] through us, but targeted exactly at Russia, at [its] peacekeeping mission," the Transnistrian leader’s press service quoted him as saying.
According to him, the organizers of the terrorist attacks planned to accuse Russia of failing to fulfil its peacekeeping obligations. "I wish here to address the [terrorist] handlers and masterminds: We stopped you from making a tragic mistake, the consequences of which would have been extremely serious, including for you," the Transnistrian leader said.
In February, the Transnistrian Ministry of State Security announced that a terrorist attack had been thwarted, and that an alleged perpetrator and an accomplice were detained. It said that the masterminds planned to detonate a car bomb in the center of Tiraspol so as to cause as many casualties as possible.
Transnistrian Prosecutor General Anatoly Guretsky announced that those suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on the republic’s leadership initially planned to target a delegation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the city of Bendery. President Krasnoselsky said at that time that the attack had been planned at the behest of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).