Moldova’s Pro-EU President Claims Russia Plotting To Overthrow Govt

Moldova’s president has made some astounding accusations directed at Moscow, alleging that a moment the tiny nation is at its most vulnerable due to an energy supply crisis and nearby war, Russia is seeking to overthrow her government.

President Maia Sandu spoke days after pro-EU prime minister Natalia Gavrilita resigned under intense pressure, and following Friday’s Russian missile breach of Moldovan airspace after it was launched from a Black Sea warship toward Ukraine. All this comes at a moment that Europe’s poorest country is already enduring “multiple crises”. 

Now President Sandu says Russian intelligence has an elaborate plan in place to destabilize and collapse the government, and to install pro-Russian leaders, using color revolution-style tactics.

She claimed that Kremlin agents are preparing to flood the country with Russian, Belarusian and Serbian agents provocateurs to steer protests and unrest in order to “change the legitimate government to an illegal government controlled by the Russian Federation.”

“The plan for the next period involves actions with the involvement of diversionists with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attack some state buildings and even take hostages,” Sandu told reporters at a Monday briefing.

“The purpose of these actions is to overthrow the constitutional order, to change the legitimate power from Chisinau to an illegitimate one, which would put our country at the disposal of Russia in order to stop the European integration process,” Sandu said, but without presenting evidence.

Moldova was granted EU candidate status in June 2022, but the deeply impoverished nation is believed to have a long way to go, and its struggling energy sector was recently bailed out by Western donors.

Not only does Moldova border Ukraine, but its breakaway Transnistria region has long had a Russian troop presence. Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the first to issue a specific claim that there’s an active Russian intelligence plot “for the destruction of Moldova”. 

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