CHISINAU, May 3. /TASS/. The Interior Ministry of self-proclaimed Transnistria has confirmed there was an attempt to stage a terrorist attack in the village of Mayak with a drone loaded with explosives.
"There was an attempt at a terrorist attack in the community of Mayak. Since last week’s explosions of antennas the TV and radio center’s security has been tightened. Last night, while patrolling the territory of the Transnistrian television and radio center border guards spotted a drone. It was neutralized," the Interior Ministry said on its Telegram channel.
"The drone carried a five-liter plastic canister with a suspicious brown liquid and a plastic container approximately 60 cm long and 25 cm in diameter with about 2 kilograms of plastid. The explosive was supplied with fuses," the Interior Ministry said.
Specialists suspect that the drone had been launched from Ukraine. The Interior Ministry speculates that the "perpetrators were plotting an act of sabotage against a hangar, housing equipment responsible for cooling the radio center’s power transformers.
Had the attack been successful, the radio center’s crucial equipment would have been put out of order, the Interior Ministry said.
The drone measures one and a half meters in diameter and is made of different parts and components.
"It is capable of carrying payloads of up to 20 kilograms as far as 30 kilometers away from the operator," the Interior Ministry said. Its press-service published a photo of the drone and explosives.
Terror attacks in Transnistria
Two antennas of the radio and television center in the community of Mayak were blown up last week. The saboteurs used antitank mines and plastic explosives. Some of their bombs failed to go off and investigators seized ten anti-tank mines and two kilograms of plastic explosives.
Earlier, the building of the State Security Ministry in Tiraspol was attacked with grenade launchers. Some explosions occurred at an airfield of a military unit near Tiraspol. It is suspected that that attack involved drones, too. Transnistria’s President Vadim Krasnoselsky said that the acts of sabotage had been organized from the territory of neighboring Ukraine. The authorities the declared the maximum terrorist alert and tightened security.