CHISINAU, March 18. /TASS/. Transnistria’s Investigative Committee believes the drone attack on a military helicopter in Tiraspol was sabotage.
The committee said that it opened a criminal case on sabotage charges. "At about 12:09 p.m. local time (10:09 a.m. GMT) on March 17, an unidentified person used an FPV drone to attack an Mi-8 helicopter at a military unit airfield. Specialists retrieved various metal and plastic fragments of the drone in the blast site: electrical engines, hull fragments, chips, and batteries," it said, adding that forensics were working to identify the explosive device the drone was carrying.
On March 17, Transnistria’s television channels released a video of a drone attack on an Mi-8MT transport helicopter of the Transnistrian army at a former military airfield in Tiraspol located some ten kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
A series of terror attacks was staged in Transnistria in April 2022: the building of the ministry of state security in Tiraspol came under shelling from hand-held grenade launchers, the antennas of the television and radio center in the community of Mayak were blown up, and the military aerodromes near Tiraspol and Ribnita, as well as military depots in Cobasna, which hold about 20,000 tons of munitions stored there after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from European countries, were attacked. No one was hurt. Transnistria President Vadim Krasnoselsky said back then that those acts of sabotage had been organized from Ukraine’s territory and accused Moldova’s special services of involvement in them. The highest (red) terrorist threat alert was declared. On May 25, it was lowered to yellow, which has been in force until today.