The British government is “very cautiously” watching for signs of a coup d’état in Moldova after the president of a small European nation warned that Vladimir Putin was behind a pro-Russian plot to seize the country’s capital, Chisinau.
Britain believes President Maia Sandu’s claim that the Kremlin plans to seize power in her country rather than Russia’s official denials, Western officials say.
“The Russians have made it clear that they have nothing to do with what is happening in Moldova,” said one Western official. “I think from the perspective of the UK government this is being watched very closely and I think I would give more weight to what one side says than the other.”
The Moldovan government collapsed last Friday when President Sandu accused Russia of conspiring to use foreign “saboteurs” to topple her and her new pro-European government.
While Dorin Recean, who is pro-EU like his predecessor Natalia Gavrilita, has been named the country’s new prime minister, President Sandu has warned that Russia is behind an ongoing “plot” by pro-Putin figures to seize control of the country in order to gain .
President Sandu said that Russia plans to “use military saboteurs dressed in civilian clothes to commit acts of violence, attack government facilities and take hostages.”
The President said that citizens of Russia, Montenegro, Belarus and Serbia would enter Moldova.
“The Kremlin’s attempts to inject violence into our country will fail,” she added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said last week that Kyiv’s intelligence services had uncovered Russia’s plan to destroy Moldova.
Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe and became an EU candidate last summer.
The country of 2.6 million is struggling with an influx of refugees from Ukraine and tensions with Transnistria, a pro-Moscow breakaway region home to about 1,500 Russian troops.
Moldova, which was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, is still dependent on Russia for natural gas supplies. Over the past year, the country has experienced power outages that have coincided with Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Moldova’s main bloc of socialist and communist opposition has close ties to Moscow. President Sandu’s predecessor, Igor Dodon, who ruled the country from 2016 to 2020, pursued a policy of expanding ties with the Kremlin.