MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/. Russia’s military contingent in Transnistria can repel any attack and Moldovan President Maia Sandu is fully aware of it, Viktor Volodatsky, first deputy chairman of the committee for CIS affairs, Eurasian integration and relations with compatriots of the Russian State Duma, or lower parliament house, said in an interview with TASS.
"Speculations that [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky will deliver a strike at Transnistria are utter nonsense, ravings of a lunatic. He will never do it. Our contingent there will repel any forces, and, naturally, we will help it because they are our people, our army and we will never abandon them. And [Moldovan President Maia] Sandu knows it. That is why she refrains from such statements," he said.
A series of terror attacks rocked Transnistria in late April: the building of the ministry of state security in the Transnistrian capital of Tiraspol came under shelling from hand-held grenade launchers, two antennas of the television and radio center in the community of Mayak were blown up, a military aerodrome near Tiraspol and military depots in the village of Cobasna, which hold about 20,000 tonnes of munitions stored there after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from European countries, were attacked.
Transnistria’s authorities recognized these incidents as terror attacks. The leader of the self-proclaimed republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky, said that the acts of sabotage had been organized from Ukrainian territory. Following the terror attack, the highest level of terrorist threat was declared in the region. It was lowered from red to yellow on May 25.
Transnistria’s authorities have repeatedly said that Moldova is unreachable for contact to investigate these terror attacks, although the Transnistrian side handed over corresponding materials.
On June 27, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that Ukraine was ready to a retaliation "strike" to respond to a hypothetical threat from Transnistria.