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Russian Deputy PM dismisses allegations he will arrive in Moldova on warplane

Dmitry Rogozin plans to visit Chisinau at the head of a Russian delegation in connection with the 25th anniversary since the start of the peacekeeping operation in Transdniestria
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin Alexander Astafyev/Press Service of the Russian Government/TASS
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin
© Alexander Astafyev/Press Service of the Russian Government/TASS

MOSCOW, July 22. /TASS/. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has dismissed the allegations about his forthcoming arrival on a visit of Moldova aboard a warplane as utter nonsense.

He plans to visit Chisinau at the head of a Russian delegation in connection with the 25th anniversary since the start of the peacekeeping operation in the much-troubled independence-minded Transdniestria, also known as the unrecognized Dniester Republic.

"Strange people, aren’t they?" Rogozin twittered on Friday. "First they invented a story about my flying their on a warplane (a Tupolev-160, I think?), and then they believed in that nonsense and staged a real hullabaloo."

Moldova’s Prime Minister Pavel Filip said earlier Rogozin should not come to Moldova aboard a warplane.

"He doesn’t have any restrictions as regards the entry of Moldova but what matters is how he really comes," Filip told reporters on Friday. "If wants to come to Tiraspol on a warplane. Then he won’t come there on a warplane, and if he plans to come in a normal mode by a scheduled flight, then we welcome his visit of course and no one will ban his trip to Moldova."

"Moldovan Prime Minister doesn’t want me to arrive by plane. OK. Moldova’s authorities have a choice to offer - a helicopter or a bike," Rogozin wrote.

Moldova’s Foreign Ministry offered the Russian delegation, which includes performers and journalists who planned to take part in the anniversary events, to cancel the visit altogether. Its objections stemmed from the plans of the delegations to use the jets belonging to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Moldovan President Igor Dodon denounced the government’s refusal to receive the jets of the Russian Defense Ministry with a delegation from Moscow in Chisinau.

"When a jet of the U.S. Department of Defense brought a group of generals to the neutral Moldova recently, this didn’t cause any questions on the part of the government somehow," he told TASS.