MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia on Tuesday angrily rejected the Moldovan president’s claims about an alleged plot by Moscow to overthrow her government and accused Moldovan authorities of trying to distract public attention away from the country’s own domestic problems.
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said Monday that the purported Russian plot envisioned attacks on government buildings, hostage-takings and other violent actions by groups of saboteurs in order to put the nation “at the disposal of Russia” and derail its hopes to join the European Union.
Responding Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed Sandu’s claims as “absolutely unfounded and unsubstantiated.”
“They are built in the spirit of classical techniques that are often used by the United States, other Western countries and Ukraine,” Zakharova said. “First, accusations are made with reference to purportedly classified intelligence information that cannot be verified, and then they are used to justify their own illegal actions.”
Sandu’s claim came a week after neighboring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova. Moldovan intelligence officials later said that they confirmed the allegations. Zakharova accused Ukrainian officials of alleging Russia’s plans to destabilize Moldova and draw it into a conflict with Russia. She said that the Moldovan authorities “used the myth of the Russian threat to divert the attention of Moldovan citizens from internal problems stemming from the disastrous socioeconomic course of the current government and to escalate the fight against their opponents and political opponents.” ” he claimed.
Zakharova said Russia is not a threat to Moldova and she wants to develop mutually beneficial cooperation, she stressed.
Since Russian forces invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was given EU candidate status on the same day as Ukraine.
In December, Moldova’s National Intelligence Service warned that Russia could launch a new offensive aimed at creating a land route through southern Ukraine to the independent Moldovan-backed Transnistria region. . Transnistria became independent after the civil war in 1992, but is not recognized by most countries. It stretches for about 400 kilometers from the eastern bank of the Dniester to the border with Ukraine. Russia nominally deploys about 1,500 troops in the segregated area as “peacekeepers” .
