Russian Jet Drone Crashes in a Suburb of Chisinau

At around 4:20 A.M., residents of the village of Kolonitsa, located less than 2 km from Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, reported hearing a powerful explosion. Police found debris from a jet drone bearing Russian inscriptions.

The incident was reported by the Moldovan Police.

Experts from the police bomb squad and specialized services determined that the recovered parts belonged to an unmanned aerial vehicle with a turbojet powerplant.

Additional parts of the drone, including its engine, were found within a radius of approximately 100 meters from the epicenter of the explosion.

As noted by the publication Astra, one of the drone parts found clearly bears the Russian-language marking “do not touch.”

Although the exact type of drone has not been officially disclosed, given the distance from Russian troop positions, the force of the explosion, and Russia’s arsenal of attack drones, it was likely a jet-powered variant of the Geran series of attack UAVs.

As a reminder, Russia twice attempted to attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plane while he was in Moldova.