(Dan Tri) – Moldova President Maia Sandu accused Russian private military company tycoon Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin of having a plan to overthrow her before Mr. Prigozhin died in a plane crash in August.
Moldova President Maia Sandu (Photo: Reuters).
Responding to the Financial Times, Ms. Sandu accused Mr. Prigozhin of trying to plan a coup in Moldova with the aim of overthrowing her pro-Western government.
`According to the information we have, it was a plan prepared by Prigozhin’s team,` she said.
Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Kiev intelligence had discovered a suspected plot led by Wagner to overthrow Ms. Sandu.
Ms. Sandu later said that Moldovan authorities had deported nearly 200 foreign nationals, including a member of the Wagner group.
In an interview published on October 6, Ms. Sandu accused Russia of wanting to overthrow her but failed, and said that Moscow seemed to want to interfere in the elections in Moldova with `a lot of money`.
The country of 2.6 million people Moldova, located between Ukraine and European Union (EU) member Romania, has applied to join the EU and has now been granted candidate status by the 27-member bloc.
Earlier this year, President Maia Sandu accused Moscow of wanting to incite violence in Moldova to overthrow her government and replace it with a pro-Russian ruling group.
Relations between Russia and Moldova tended to escalate after Moscow launched a military campaign in Ukraine more than 19 months ago.
Afterwards, Moldovan Foreign Ministry spokesman Daniel Voda said: `We unequivocally reject the statements of the head of the Russian diplomatic agency. This does not correspond to reality and is part of the rhetoric.`
`We want to remind the Russian side that the Republic of Moldova has chosen the path of joining the European Union. This is supported by the people,` the Voda official said.
In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin revoked a 2012 decree that had favored Moldova’s sovereignty over the future of the pro-Moscow separatist region Transnistria.
Mr. Prigozhin and several other senior Wagner figures were killed in a plane crash in Russia’s Tver Region on August 23.
The cause of the incident has not been announced and President Putin said on October 5 that the plane crash that killed Mr. Prigozhin in August appeared to be caused by a grenade exploding inside the plane, not due to an attack.
`Grenade fragments were found in the bodies of those killed in the accident,` Mr. Putin revealed.
