On the night of September 18, a powerful explosion was heard near Chișinău, in the area of the Moldovan village of Colonica. Local residents reported it to the police at approximately four in the morning. According to the General Inspectorate of the Police of Moldova and local media, as cited by RBC-Ukraine, the loud sound was heard in the southwestern part of the village of Colonica, in the direction of the village of Tohatino. At the time of publication, the exact cause of the incident had not been established, and the search for the source was ongoing.
Timeline and law enforcement actions
Immediately after receiving reports from residents, police officers went to the scene and inspected the settlements of Colonica and Humulești, but found no visible traces of an explosion there. Additional checks, according to available information, are being carried out in the villages of Dolinene and Maximovka. The head of the General Inspectorate of the Police, Viorel Cernăuțeanu, told journalists that security forces are reviewing video footage to precisely establish the epicenter, and did not rule out that "we may have to check several more areas." Additional units have been dispatched to the scene, and unmanned aerial vehicles have been deployed to search for the source of the explosion.
Defense Ministry position and the airspace mystery
In response to a query from the NewsMaker publication, the Ministry of Defense of Moldova reported that no violation of the country's airspace was recorded on the night of September 18. This creates a contradictory picture: a powerful explosion, heard by residents of several villages, was not accompanied by any record of an object entering the airspace. According to open comments, the department is "in the process of clarifying the circumstances." Thus, no official version — from a technical malfunction to a sabotage incident — has been confirmed.
Contradictory data
The statements of the parties contain inconsistencies regarding the location and the exact time. The mayor of the village of Colonica, Angela Zaporojyan, clarified that the explosion itself did not occur on the territory of her settlement, whereas the police were the first to include Colonica and the neighboring villages in the inspection zone and found no traces there. In addition, different wordings date the incident as "the night of September 18" and "on the night of September 18," which creates a discrepancy in determining the specific hour. So far, no version regarding the location and cause has been reconciled, and both perspectives — "the explosion was not in Colonica" and "the inspection of Colonica yielded no results" — remain open.
Context: drones and sabotage risks
The incident is occurring against a backdrop of heightened alertness: a few days earlier, Moldovan authorities had temporarily closed part of the airspace due to a drone that strayed in from Ukraine, which caused several flights to be delayed. Previously, the head of the Information and Security Service of Moldova had reported that, according to the service's data, the Kremlin is recruiting Moldovan citizens for 20–100 euros for sabotage tasks, a significant portion of which is linked to Ukraine. These circumstances do not confirm the sabotage version of the explosion, but they explain why law enforcement and military are approaching the investigation with maximum caution.
By the morning of September 19, about six hours after the incident, no official conclusions on the cause of the explosion had been announced. The police and the Defense Ministry are continuing their joint work, and the situation remains open and will be updated as confirmed data becomes available.
