CHISINAU, March 20. /TASS/. Evacuation of Russian nationals who cannot leave Moldova after the closure of borders in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic will begin on March 21, Moldova’s President Igor Dodon said on Friday.

"Tomorrow, two plane are expected to arrive from Russia, which wants to evacuate its citizens," he said in an interview with the NTV-Moldova television channel.

He asked the Russian government to airlift Moldovan nationals to Chisinau by these planes. "Several hundreds of Moldovan nationals want to return home," he noted.

Head of the Russian embassy’s consular department Vitaly Bogdanov told TASS earlier that more than 300 Russians had got stuck in Moldova.

Moldova imposed a state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak on Tuesday. It will stay in force until May 15. The country has closed its borders. Educational establishments and shops have also been closed, but for food stores and pharmacies, people are asked to stay at home.

As of today, 66 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Moldova. The authorities are getting prepared to the worst scenario with the number of those infected exceeding 1,500.

A pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 virus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, a large trade and industrial center with a population of 12 million, in late December 2019. Cases of the new coronavirus have also been reported from more than 140 countries and territories, including Russia, which by now has 253 cases. The World Health Organization says that the novel coronavirus cases across the globe have exceeded 240,000, with more than 10,000 deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic. In order to keep the citizens updated on the coronavirus situation in Russia, the government has launched a website at http://···············.··.