Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has claimed that his country's intelligence services recently intercepted plans by Russia to "destroy" Moldova.
Speaking to the European Council on Thursday, Zelenskyy suggested that he had informed Moldovan President Maia Sandu about the alleged plot.
"I have informed [Sandu] that we have intercepted the plan of the destruction of Moldova by the Russian intelligence. This document shows who, when and how Russia is going to break their democracy and establish control over Moldova."
This is not the first time that Zelenskyy has made such allegations. In April last year, he claimed that Russia's "clear" goal is to "destabilise" and "threaten Moldova by showing that if it supports Ukraine then there will be these or those steps."
'We are seeing bomb threats'
Although Zelenskyy did not provide any direct evidence to corroborate his latest assertion, comments made by both Moldovan and Russian officials in recent weeks certainly suggest that, at the very least, relations between Chișinău and Moscow are becoming dangerously strained.
On Tuesday, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița informed Euronews that "pro-Russian forces" are conducting a "hybrid war" against her country by stoking mass public protests, launching cyber attacks, and wielding bomb threats.
"We are seeing pro-Russian forces trying to destabilise the country politically through paid protests. These quickly subsided when the oligarchs that fled Moldova were put on the sanctions lists and their money flows were restricted," Gavrilița said.
She added: "We are seeing cyber attacks. We've had the biggest cyber attacks in 2022 in the history of our country, and we are seeing bomb threats."
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Adding to the tensions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed last week that Moldova "is one of the countries that the West wants to turn into another anti-Russia." He said that its President "is itching to join NATO" by anti-democratic means.
Russia currently has 1,500 "peacekeepers" stationed in Moldova's eastern breakaway region of Transnistria – troops which, many security analysts believe, would be rapidly mobilised by Moscow in the event of a full-scale Russian invasion.
Zelenskyy arrived in Brussels on Thursday morning, after brief visits to the UK and France the day before. In a speech delivered to the European Parliament on Thursday afternoon, Zelenskyy claimed that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has put "the European way of life under threat", and called on European leaders to supply his country with fighter jets and longer-range missiles as Ukraine attempts to liberate territory annexed or occupied by Russia.
