CHISINAU, March 14. /TASS/. The suspects in a terrorist act in Transnistria plotted to attack an OSCE delegation in Tiraspol last month, Anatoly Guretsky, the unrecognized republic’s prosecutor general, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Investigators "established that a terrorist attack targeting an OSCE delegation was plotted to occur near the Bender Fortress on February 14, when the delegation was to be on their way back to Chisinau," Guretsky said.
On February 14, North Macedonian Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, visited Bender for talks with Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky. The delegation of around 20 people included Thomas Harting, the OSCE Special Representative for the Transnistrian Settlement Porcess, and Kelly Keiderling, the head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova.
Last week, the State Security Ministry of the unrecognized republic said it had thwarted a terrorist attack against several Transnistrian officials. The perpetrators’ plan was to detonate a car bomb, packed with eight kilograms of hexogen, as well as screws and nuts, in the center of Tiraspol so as to strike as many people as possible. Two plotters are reported to have been detained. One of them has already testified. The Transnistrian president said the sabotage was planned at the behest of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).
In April 2022, Transnistria was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks, beginning with the shelling of the State Security Ministry building with grenade launchers. Then, broadcasting antennas were blown up at one of the region’s largest radio and television centers, in the village of Mayak. Attacks were also carried out on military airfields near Tiraspol and Rybnitsa, as well as against the Transnistrian peacekeeping contingent and the premises of an arsenal near the village of Kolbasna, which serves as a storage depot for roughly 20,000 tons of ammunition. No one was hurt during these attacks.
At the time, Krasnoselsky stated that the sabotage had been masterminded from Ukrainian territory. After the attacks, Transnistria put in place the maximum terrorist threat level. On May 25, it was downgraded from red to yellow and remains in effect to date.