Loud noise and panic in the town of Cernița, Florești district, where a drone fell and exploded on the morning of September 24th. The unmanned flying device crashed and caught fire in a cornfield, and people managed to notice it, hear the bang, and film the movement of the device.
“Drones are not really heard here, maybe in other parts. Until today, we haven’t heard them. We thought the house would fall, but what can we do? We went outside. Those who work on the farm lay on their stomachs in fear. Someone says the drone crashed into a walnut tree”, a family from the village told Moldova 1.
A retiree from Cernița says that initially, she thought the noise she heard came from a plane. Later, the loud bang made her think that something had happened right in her household.
The incident made her view differently the information about drones that illegally flew over Moldova’s airspace and reached other areas.
“I have a grandson and I don’t want him to be taken to war. Before, I didn’t believe it when drones were falling in other places, I thought it was politics and now I have seen it with my own eyes. Now it’s clear that it’s not about politics anymore. I saw with my own eyes what happened, how it sounded from above”, the woman told the journalists.
Another man recounted that the noise of the drone seemed similar to that produced by a chainsaw. A fellow villager, who saw the crashed drone, then told him about what had happened.
On the morning of September 24, four drones flew over the airspace of the Republic of Moldova, and two of them exploded on the ground – one in Cernița and another in the Camenca district of the Transnistrian region. The airspace was closed until 7:46.
The drone detected in the Florești district is of the Gerbera type, used by the Russian Federation. It was equipped with a video camera.
“The Russian Federation continues to defy the national security of the Republic of Moldova and to directly threaten the safety of our citizens. Under these circumstances, those who still wonder why we need to strengthen our anti-aircraft defense capabilities either demonstrate irresponsibility towards people’s lives, or they are on the aggressor’s side. These incidents can no longer be treated as isolated cases. They represent a real danger to people and to the security of our country,” commented on the incident the Minister of Defense, Anatolie Nosatîi.
The President of the Parliament, Igor Grosu, announced that the authorities in Moldova are negotiating with Romania and Ukraine a potential joint response against Russian drones.