CHISINAU, August 5. /TASS/. A Russian peacekeeper in Transnistria has saved a drowning boy at the cost of his own life. The incident occurred on the Dniester river on August 1, the self-proclaimed republic's Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
A Russian peacekeeper was spending a holiday with his family on the bank of the Dniester when he heard screams for help. A boy had been caught up in a fishing net, abandoned on the riverbed, and could drown at any moment.
"The man rushed to the rescue without losing a second. He helped the boy to the bank, but got caught in the net himself. He struggled to exhaustion and eventually drowned," the news release runs. Rescuers found the peacekeeper's body downstream several days later. He had two children of his own.
This is not the first case of Russian peacekeepers rescuing local residents.
The battalion of Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria has repeatedly been recognized as the best contingent of this kind in trouble spots in the whole of the CIS. Its personnel guards warehouses with old ammunition and, together with Transnistrian and Moldovan Blue helmets mans roadblocks in the security zone separating the conflicting parties. There has not been a single outbreak of violence and not a single person has been killed in the area for many years.