Ambassador Shevchenko on shooting incident on border with Transnistria: "Two Transnistrians opened fire. One of them was killed in shootout"
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Moldova Marko Shevchenko confirmed the shooting incident on the border between Ukraine and unrecognised Transnistria in early January. He said that one Transnistrian was killed in a shootout with Ukrainian border guards.
As Censor.NET quoted him as saying this with reference to Newsmaker
Shevchenko said that in early January, two Transnistrians, one of whom was an employee of the local "Ministry of State Security", "crossed the Ukrainian border to discuss something with a Ukrainian border guard".
"Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were waiting for them, because these two Transnistrians, according to available information, were involved in illegal trafficking," he said.
According to him, then one of the residents of the unrecognised Transnistria Republic "pulled out a gun and started shooting at the Ukrainian border guards, who returned fire".
"One of the Transnistrians was killed, another was wounded and is now in hospital," the diplomat said.
He also added that "Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were operating on our territory, and their reaction was harsh, because the law on border crossing and illegal traffic was violated".
Shooting on the border with the so-called Transnistria
In early January, the 'ministry of state security' of unrecognised Transnistria claimed that an 'incident involving the use of firearms' had taken place on the border with Ukraine. At the time, the spokesman for the State Border Guard Service, Ruslan Demchenko, denied this information. After that, Chisinau also denied Tiraspol's statement about the incident on the border with Ukraine.
