CHISINAU, August 14. /TASS/. The decision to reduce the number of diplomats at the Russian embassy in Moldova was made by the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), despite the interests of the country’s residents with a view to pleasing the West and being in a trend with NATO member countries who made a similar decision earlier, Igor Dodon, former president and Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova leader, told TASS on Monday.
Commenting on the departure of 45 of Russian embassy staff, he said, "Not long ago, Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Nicolae Popescu assured us that there was no following the West’s lead to reduce the number of employees at the Russian Embassy, as there were just a few diplomats at our diplomatic mission in Moscow and that potential retaliatory measures would affect hundreds of thousands of Moldovan citizens who are employed in Russia <…>. In its turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had no intention to downgrade the level of diplomatic relations, which means that Moscow took with understanding the problems being faced by our citizens, unlike our authorities."
He also noted that several major statements unheard of in the past 10 to 15 years were made in Moscow last week.
"Anti-Russian moves by our leadership are unlikely to go unanswered. They may trigger restrictions on agriculture which is 70% oriented to the markets of the CIS and Russia, in particular. Despite the government’s bravado about the country reorienting its supplies to the EU, we have no alternative market for fruit, vegetable and wine exports that could consume the volumes that we produce," Dodon lamented. He said some Russian lawmakers were wondering if Moscow should restrict the number of Moldovan arrivals to Russia. "Moldova’s anti-Russian policy course will hit our citizens, rather than the Kremlin, as our state-mongers have been trying to portray it, and it could cause a major destabilization in our country," he warned.
Relations between the two countries began to worsen after pro-European forces came to power in Moldova in 2021. The expulsion of Russian diplomats was preceded by publications in the Moldovan media and on social networks alleging that the number of antennas on the building of the Russian embassy indicated that it might be engaged in spying. In the end, Chisinau demanded that Russia reduce the number of its embassy’s employees to 10 diplomats and 15 administrative and technical employees by August 15, to bring them to parity with the employees of the Moldovan embassy in Moscow.