MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. The West is working to turn Moldova against Russia, just like it did with Ukraine, said Vasily Bolya, an opposition lawmaker at the Moldovan legislature.

"Moldova's military exercises with American and Romanian troops go nonstop on its territory. Unfortunately, European and American handlers of the government in Chisinau are making steady efforts to make our country an ‘anti-Russia’ number two. I am sure they will not succeed," the lawmaker, who heads the parliamentary faction of the opposition political bloc Victory, told TASS.

Bolya reiterated that Moldova’s neutral status is enshrined in the constitution and the status needs to be reinforced.

"The efforts of our government to militarize Moldova cause certain nervousness in our society. This policy should be cast aside and real problems need to be addressed, first of all economic ones, instead of creating them artificially in order to say later how heroically we fight them," Bolya said.

Last year, seven military exercises, some of them involving NATO countries, took place in Moldova. That was almost double the number from previous years. Some of them were held near the Transnistrian conflict security zone, which is guarded by Russian peacekeepers. The leadership of breakaway Transnistria has previously expressed concern about the increased activity of the Moldovan Armed Forces. Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi conceded that only about 25% of people in the country support its accession to the North Atlantic Alliance.