Moldovan president Maia Sandu said that Russian forces had plotted to overthrow the Moldovan government to prevent the country from joining the EU.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian
intelligence had intercepted Russian plans to destroy Moldova; these
claims were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence.
- Sandu
said that "diversionists with military training, camouflaged in
civilian clothes ... will undertake violent actions, attack some state
buildings, and even take hostages."
- The former Soviet state has faced months of anti-government protests led by the Russia-aligned Moldovan politician Ilan Shor's right-wing Shor Party.
- Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita resigned last Friday, the same day that a Russian missile passed through Moldovan airspace en route to neighboring Ukraine.
- Both Ukraine and Moldova were accepted as EU candidate states in June 2022.
- Russia has long been aligned with the separatist government of the Moldovan region of Transnistria.
- The region, home to 470,000 people, has been controlled by the separatist government since a 1992 civil war.
