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Border village shows scars of Russia's war machine
The Citizen
|January 28, 2026
The village of Palanca felt the full horror of the war in neighbouring Ukraine one December day.
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A mom was killed and her three children wounded by a Russian drone as they drove over the border bridge across the river Dniester into this previously quiet corner of southeast Moldova, Ukrainian officials said.
“We are right across from there and it terrified us,” villager Maria Morari, 62, recalled of the two days of crossing attacks.
Like many in Palanca, she is worried the war could spill over.
The border village is on the strategic road running to the Ukrainian port of Odesa.
Moldova’s airspace has been violated dozens of times since the invasion four years ago, with several Russian missiles and drones crashing on its territory, the latest an Iranian-designed Shahed suicide drone, with 50kg of explosives, which came down 12km northwest of Palanca last week.
This story is from the January 28, 2026 edition of The Citizen.
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