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A drone strike at a military installation in Moldova’s breakaway republic of Transnistria on Sunday destroyed a helicopter and ignited a fire, officials said.
The area’s pro-Russian authorities blamed the strike on Ukraine.
Russia bases about 1,500 troops in Transnistria, nominally as peacekeepers, guarding huge Soviet-era weapons and ammunition stockpiles at the military depot on Cobasna. The base hit by the drone on Sunday was in Tiraspol, the region’s capital, and it was not clear if any Russian troops were on that site.
The attack comes weeks after officials in Transnistria appealed to Moscow for protection as tensions escalated with Moldova’s pro-Western government.
Moldova, a candidate to join the European Union, imposed new customs duties on Jan. 1 on imports to and exports from Transnistria, which borders Ukraine. Transnistria isn’t recognized by any United Nations member countries, including Russia, which maintains close ties to the region.
Late last month, members of the Transnistrian congress used a rare meeting in the regional capital of Tiraspol to ask the Russian Duma to “implement measures for defending Transnistria amid increasing pressure from Moldova, given the fact that more than 220,000 Russian citizens reside in Transnistria.”
The explosion also coincided with the final day of Russia’s tightly controlled three-day presidential elections. A man was detained earlier on Sunday after throwing two Molotov cocktails at the Russian Embassy in Moldova’s capital of Chisinau, where voting for the election was taking place.
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