Military helicopter blown up in breakaway region of Moldova in suspected Russian ’false flag’

A Russian-made military helicopter has been blown up in a breakaway region of Moldova in what the national government and Ukrainians say is a ‘false flag’ operation. Video taken at a military airfield in the Transnistria region, which houses Russian troops and recently appealed to Putin for ‘protection’, shows an Mi-8 helicopter exploding as it sits on the tarmac, with the region’s pro-Moscow rulers saying it was hit by a drone. But Moldova’s national government denied there was any strike while Ukraine’s secret service said the Russians had carried it out themselves as a ‘provocation’. Russia has stationed troops in Transnistria since the 1990s and Putin’s original invasion plans for Ukraine were thought to involve marching into the region after taking the Ukrainian city of Odesa, around 60 miles to the east. As the battlefield shifts in Russia’s favour and President Putin recovers his power following the initial disastrous attack on Kyiv, it seems proxy forces in the region are once again laying the groundw