Madalin NecsutuChisinauBIRNFebruary 17, 202318:17Law enforcement bodies say they are on the lookout for troublemakers ahead of a rally by pro-Russian parties in the capital Chisinau on Sunday.

Moldova Braces Ahead of Pro-Russian Protest in Capital

Supporters of the Ilan Shor party clash with riot police in Chisinau, Moldova, October 30, 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/Dumitru Doru

Moldovan authorities are preparing new measures to keep order in the country ahead of a pro-Russian anti-government rally due in Chisinau on Sunday.

Pro-Russian parties, led by the fugitive oligarchs Ilan Shor and Vlad Plahotniuc, plan protests in the centre of Chisinau against the pro-Western government and low living standards, as Moldova grapples with several overlapping crises, including a war in its vicinity in Ukraine.

Authorities believe Russian destabilisation plans include the mass protests planned by the pro-Russian parties, allegedly paid for by a fugitive oligarch.

President Maia Sandu said on Monday: “Through violent actions, masked under protests of the so-called opposition, a change of power in Chisinau would be forced.”

“The plan for the next period involves actions made by diversionists with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attacks on some state buildings and hostage-taking,” Sandu said.

Sandu added that Russia is preparing attacks on state institutions in Moldova and will infiltrate trained foreigners from Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro.

Her statement drew criticism in Belgrade and Podgorica, especially after Moldova banned the entrance into the country of some Belgrade football supporters and a boxing team from Montenegro this week.

Meanwhile, the leader of fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor’s party on Monday accused Sandu of attempting to usurp power and called for new protests.

He spoke after Sandu pushed for parliament to vote new security laws which will grant the secret services more surveillance powers without needing a judges’ mandate, against persons suspected of working in the interests of other states.

“If it is put into practice [the new security laws], it will lead to new abuses of power and violations of human rights and limitations of citizens’ rights,” stated Ilan Shor party deputy Marina Tauber, who ws investigated over the 2014 “grand theft of one billion US dollars” from the banking system.

At the protest on Sunday, protesters should bring their bills for the government to pay them, Ilan Shor, the mastermind of the “grand theft”, who is now living in Israel, suggested.

A final sentence in the “grand theft” case is expected soon, after Shor was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail in the first instance verdict.

For weeks, Shor and other pro-Russian parties have been running a populist door-to-door campaign collecting signatures from socially vulnerable categories for the government to pay all of their bills.

Shor has urged his followers to unite into a force that acts as a whole, and “we will make these bastards [the government] pay the people’s bills for three months.”

“We will gather and demonstrate peacefully to prove that this mentally ill Maia [Sandu] invented all the myths and stories about a so-called coup d’état to give herself more prerogatives and make fun of the people,” Shor said.

Shor promised also that if he came to power, he would pay everybody’s bills using the external loans and grants the pro-European government brought to Moldova.

Moldova Braces Ahead of Pro-Russian Protest in Capital

The leader of the Shor Politic Party, Ilan Shor, is speaking to his followers from a TV screen in front of the Parliament. Photo: EPA/Dumitru Doru

From August to December, the party organised daily small and weekly big protests in Chisinau asking for the resignation of the government. People from all over Moldova were bused into Chisinau. They blocked the main boulevard and provoked a clash with law enforcers.

Moldovan and Ukrainian intelligence say Russia plans to use saboteurs from abroad to infiltrate protests in Moldova and attack state institutions.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky reported such covert Russian operations in Moldova on his visit to Brussels on February 9. Moldova’s intelligence services received similar information from Ukrainian counterparts.

“We intercepted a plan of the Russian secret services to destroy Moldova. The document shows who, when and how will destroy the democracy of Moldova and take control of Moldova. When I received the document and understood where it came from, I immediately warned Moldova,” Zelensky stated in Brussels.

The Moldovan Information and Security Services, SIS, told BIRN that it is monitoring the situation.

“The SIS, together with the law enforcement institutions, closely monitors the evolution of the security situation in the country and takes actions to prevent provocative activities of a destabilising nature from certain destructive forces,” the SIS spokesperson, Daniela Minzat, told BIRN.

The head of the Communication and Protocol Section of the General Police Inspectorate, Diana Fetco, told BIRN that police would ensure that there are no criminal incidents.

“We are doing our job as usual, but much of our operational information cannot be made public. We know that a meeting is expected in the capital’s centre on Sunday, but all the time, we are on duty and ensure order,” she said.

Moldovan Border Police said they stopped the entrance into the country of various individuals who could not justify their presence in Moldova, mostly from countries with warm relations with Russia.

On Monday, the head of the Parliamentary Commission for Defence, Security and Public Order, MP Lilian Carp, told TVR Moldova that in the last year, about 200 people from the Russian region of Dagestan had come to Moldova but were stopped at the border because they could not justify their visit.

Another powerful pro-Russian figure in Moldova, former president Igor Dodon, said on Thursday that if something really threatened the country, Sandu would either be in a bunker or would have fled the country. On Sunday, he said, she was at a concert and clapped her hands, and on Monday she had scared the whole of Moldova with talk of war and saboteurs.

“This is not correct. The President’s job is to reassure citizens, not to mislead them and sow panic,” wrote Dodon on his Facebook page on Wednesday.

The new Prime Minister sworn in on Thursday, Dorin Recean, meanwhile declared that “the risks for security in the region are high, with serious consequences for Moldova”.

“Our country is the target of unprecedented threats and destabilization attempts. The government will prioritise public order, the safety of citizens, preserving the country’s stability and unity through cohesion policies and an active foreign policy, as well as the modernization of the force structures,” Recean said.

 

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