Forty-five employees from the Russian Embassy, including diplomats and technical staff, will be expelled from the former Soviet state Moldova. Igor Zakharov, advisor on communication at the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, informed Deschide.MD of the decision on Wednesday, July 26th.
While Zakharov was careful in stressing it was “not about expulsion, but rather parity,” since these persons had not been “declared persona non grata.” Instead, they were asked to leave to “ensure diplomatic parity,” a later MFA press release referred to “numerous unfriendly actions towards the Republic of Moldova, as well as “attempts to destabilize the internal situation in our country” as reasons for the move.
As a result, embassy personnel will be cut to 25 from more than 80, the foreign ministry said, bringing Russia’s diplomatic presence in Moldova up to the same level as Moldova’s in Russia.
Moscow, the statement added, has until August 15th to implement the decision.
During a separate cabinet meeting, Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said they had agreed “on the need to limit the number of accredited diplomats from Russia so that there are fewer people trying to destabilize the Republic of Moldova,” which “for many years” had been “the object of hostile Russian actions and policies. Many of them were made through the embassy [in the Moldovan capital of Chișinău], Popescu said.
The decision comes on the heels of an investigation by The Insider and Moldovan television channel Jurnal TV published earlier this week, which showed that the number of satellite dishes and communication devices on the Russian embassy’s rooftop in Chișinău had been steadily increasing over the years, sparking fears they were used for spying.
The report revealed that 28 dishes, masts, and other types of equipment for transmitting and receiving are currently installed on the embassy and an adjacent building.
In addition, “enigmatic figures” were regularly seen on the embassy’s roof, who Jurnal TV and The Insider managed to identify as “covert communication officers” associated with the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), agencies which they say are “closely connected” to groups responsible for the hacking of the mailboxes of prominent European and U.S. politicians such as Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and Hillary Clinton.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Moldova’s latest decision an expression of “Russophobia,” which is “encouraged in every possible way in Moldova now,” but “often does not find a breeding ground among its people.” It was then Moldova’s leadership that had “cut all the ropes,” he added.
In that respect, the embassy staff’s expulsion was but “a continuation of the unfriendly line of the current leadership of the republic” towards the Russian Federation, Peskov remarked. Peskov continued, “unfortunately, Chișinău deliberately brings our relations into a very miserable state.” The spokesman concluded that “according to diplomatic rules, such steps are not left without reciprocity,” without treading into detail on what Moscow had in mind as a response.
Alarm about Russian subversive activities in Moldova is not new. In February this year, Moldovan President Maia Sandu claimed she had uncovered Russian plans to overthrow her government, allegations which Moscow called “absolutely unfounded and unsubstantiated.”
In March, a leaked document obtained through a joint investigation revealed that Russia, even before the start of the war in Ukraine, had drawn up a ten-year plan to pull Moldova into its ambit, shutting out the EU, U.S., and NATO influences.
