The owner of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, tried to carry out a coup d’état in Moldova in February. The Russians sought to remove the country’s president, Maia Sandu, from power.
At the beginning of the year, Sandu said that Russia planned to overthrow the Moldovan government under the guise of allegedly protests that would turn into violence. This was prevented, but the situation was “really dramatic,” Sandu said in an interview with the Financial Times. The president added that Prigozhin and the Wagner fighters took a direct part in the failed coup d’état attempt in Moldova.
Currently, Russia is actively influencing Moldova through gas supplies, hybrid attacks, and threats against the pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria.
“Russia is going to increase its pressure on Moldova. They tried energy and failed. They tried to overthrow the government and failed. And now they are trying to massively interfere in our [future local – ed.] elections, using big money,” Sandu said.
Moldova’s special services discovered at least EUR 20 million of Russian money that came to the country for political influence, the president added.
“The tools they use to bring money into the country are very diverse. We saw that for some time they simply sent a Moldovan to Moscow by plane through Armenia. And these people brought 10 thousand euros each. Recently, we saw that they were bringing bank cards issued in Dubai,” Sandu explained.
Previously, Sandu stated that if Russia captured Kyiv “in three days,” then Moldova would be next. At the same time, Ukraine’s victory in the war with the Russian Federation will enable Moldova to settle the conflict in Transnistria.
