CHISINAU, June 23. /TASS/. Moldovan Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu, who chairs the country’s ruling Party of Action and Solidarity, said citizens need to give up the illusion of a "millennium-long friendship with Russia."

"Citizens should abandon the illusion of us having a millennium-long friendship with Russia," he told Zhurnal TV on Thursday night.

The politician claimed that Russia "has never had respect for Moldova." He also accused the Russian government of "obstructing Moldova’s European integration process."

Grosu also expressed support for his party’s idea to reduce the number of Russian diplomats in Chisinau.

"We’ll see what the Foreign Ministry has to say about this and then discuss concrete proposals in that regard," the speaker added.

Relations between Chisinau and Moscow have chilled since Maia Sandu was elected president in 2020. After her election, she announced plans to head to Moscow to discuss major issues in bilateral relations, among which she listed the export of Moldovan products, gas supplies, and support for the hundreds of thousands of Moldovan citizens who work in Russia. However, the visit never took place, while the Moldovan leadership began to ignore meetings within the framework of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

When the special military operation began in Ukraine, Moldova took the side of the West, lashing out at Moscow. Since last year, a number of Russian media outlets have been banned from broadcasting in the republic, and a national center is being created to combat the purported "propaganda" that Chisinau has repeatedly accused Moscow of spreading. Currently, the dialogue between the countries is maintained at the embassy level.

An opinion poll conducted by pollster Intellect Group and published on June 21 shows that 57% of respondents disapprove of the government’s course toward worsening relations with Russia. Another 16.4% of respondents support the deterioration of relations with Russia, and 17.3% expressed no interest in the question, while the remainder had not heard about it or declined to answer the question.