Saboteurs and hostage-taking: Moldova revealed thwarted Kremlin plans

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has confirmed that the Ukrainian side handed her the Kremlin’s plans to destabilize the situation in Moldova.

She claimed that Russia prepared military actions in Moldova with the involvement of saboteurs from Russia, Belarus, and the Balkans. According to Newsmaker, the Moldovan president said this at a special briefing. 

“This is a short-term plan that involves sabotage with the involvement of people with military training disguised as civilians. They are planning violent actions, including attacks on some state institutions and hostage-taking,” Maia Sandu stated. 

According to the president, the materials handed over by the Ukrainian officials contain detailed documentation of the logistics for organizing these subversive actions.  

“The plan envisages the use of people from outside the country for violent actions in Moldova. For example, the materials contain instructions for citizens of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Serbia, and Montenegro to enter Moldova,” the president added. 

Sandu also said that an attempt to seize power in Chisinau is being prepared under the guise of peaceful protests.

The president added that Moldova’s security forces are preparing to prevent these provocations and are controlling the situation.

At the EU summit in Brussels, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian intelligence had intercepted the Kremlin’s plans to take control of Moldova, after which the Ukrainian leader immediately passed all the information to his counterpart, President Maia Sandu. 

It was confirmed by the Security Service of Moldova.

“We don’t know whether Moscow gave the order to act on this plan against Moldova. But we saw what they were going to do. We recognized this as exactly what they have already tried to do against Ukraine, against other states, particularly in Europe. It’s nothing new,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian media have repeatedly made harsh and rude attacks on Moldova and the Moldovan leadership, particularly since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Most recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that they are trying to make a “second Ukraine” out of Moldova, which was sharply commented on by the country’s foreign ministry.