Chisinau seeks the imposition of the sanctions of the European Union against “corrupt oligarchs and politicians who, together with Russia, are trying to destabilize Moldova.” This was announced by Moldavian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nick Popescu on the sidelines of the EU Council on Foreign Affairs in Brussels on Monday, February 20.
According to him, penalty measures should imply freezing assets and a ban on the issuance of visas. In this way, the Moldovan authorities hope to limit the possibility of these oligarchs to “pour dirty money into domestic policy and pay protesting and potentially dangerous gangs for trying to overthrow the government,” the minister explained, Deutsche Welle reports.
“It is quite obvious that these corrupt politicians work with Russia, receive open public support from Russia and wage a hybrid war with Moldova,” Popeska said.
The head of the Moldavian Foreign Ministry did not name the names, but mentioned that they fled from Moldova, and one of them is in Israel, and that they are under the sanctions of the United States and Great Britain. These two countries introduced penalties against the Moldovan oligarchs Ilan Shor and Vladimir Plahotnyuk, who fled from Moldova in 2019 due to accusations of corruption.