Early data suggest Ukrainian trail of terror attacks - Transdniestria foreign minister

MOSCOW. April 26 (Interfax) - The traces of the latest terror attacks in Transdniestria appear to be leading to Ukraine, Transdniestria's foreign minister Vitaly Ignatiev told Interfax.

"The situation is very complicated, with Transdniestria coming under terror attacks these past two days, April 25 and 26," Ignatiev said.

"We imposed a special regimen: a red terror alert. According to preliminary data, the traces of those who organized the attacks are leading to Ukraine," he said.

He said the president of Transdniestria had appealed to his nation and to Ukrainian and Moldovan representatives. "We called on our citizens to keep calm; the government has made a number of decisions to provide stability and security across the republic," he said.

"The Ukrainian side was urged to investigate the incidents and to prevent regional escalation," the minister added.

Transdniestria has taken in more than 25,000 Ukrainian refugees, Ignatiev said. "Currently these people are fully integrated in our society, the kids go to school, to kindergarten, and some receive education in Ukrainian. So, there is no problem or difficulty here," he said.

"At the same time, Transdniestria has for some reason acted as a kind of terror target, which in our view is counterproductive," the minister said.

Transdniestria also asked Chisinau to "not yield to provocations, not to drag Moldova into aggression against Transdniestria. We hope for the wisdom of our neighbors to the East and to the West," Ignatiev said.

He also dismissed as absolutely baseless the remarks by Moldovan President Maia Sandu about the Tiraspol blasts being the result of infighting withiin Transdniestria.

"I would leave this on the conscience of Ms. Sandu, these insinuations. There are tools of objective monitoring, there are the law enforcement agencies which conducted a preliminary investigation. Objective-monitoring data provide answers to where the sabotage group had come from [to Transdniestria]. I don't know what Ms. Sandu is talking about, let's leave it on her conscience," Ignatiev said.