Pro-Moscow authorities in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria announced Thursday they foiled a terrorist attack that targeted prominent separatist officials and was allegedly planned by Ukrainian security services.
Transnistrian State Security Ministry (MGB) said that the suspects, which are now being interrogated, plotted to assassinate Transnistria President Vadim Krasnoselsky and a number of other top state officials.
Transnistria’s top prosecutor Anatoly Guretsky added that the alleged terrorist attack was planned in the administrative center of the pro-Russian enclave region’s capital, Tiraspol, noting that perpetrators obviously planned for there to be many victims.
Per the reports of the state-run television channel First Pridnestrovian, the detained suspects planned to detonate a Land Rover with eight kilograms of explosives. Transnistrian media also aired images of the alleged 40-year-old perpetrator while receiving orders from Ukrainian security services.
The suspect, which the local news outlets identify as Vyacheslav Kisnichan, was allegedly born in Tiraspol, but two decades ago moved to Ukraine where he eventually was trained by and began to work for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
A narrow Russia-backed region in eastern Moldova, Transnistria separated from the ex-Soviet republic Moldova, a poor country of 2.6 million people with a sizeable Russian minority, after fighting in 1992.
Transnistrian Russians and Ukrainians, who make up 60% of the population in the region, resisted Moldova’s attempts to unite with Romania and fought off Moldovan authorities’ attempt in 1992 to reclaim Transnistria by force, after which the region remained de facto independent from Chisinau.
Russia, which has since maintained a contingent of 400 troops there, was accused last month by Moldovan pro-EU President Maia Sandu of plotting to violently overthrow her government through saboteurs disguised as anti-government protesters.
Russian peacekeepers, which are observing the ceasefire between Moldovan and local forces in Transnistria, also have a military base in the region since Soviet times.
Moscow, which strongly denied those claims, has been angered in recent years by Moldova’s pro-Western turn and continuing accusations that Russia is raising tensions in Transnistria.
Russia, on the other side, accused Ukraine in late February of stepping up preparations for an attack in Transnistria, vowing to retaliate to any provocation, but the Moldovan government dismissed those allegations and called for calm.
