CHISINAU, December 4. /TASS/. The Moldovan Prosecutor General's Office has summoned for questioning Alexander Kalinin, leader of the Moldovan opposition Party of Regions and head of the Congress of the Moldovan Diaspora in Russia, who said he was forming a detachment of Moldovan volunteers to participate in Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
"The Prosecutor's Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases has taken note of a statement by Alexander Kalinin about the formation of an international platoon of soldiers that, in the future, will fight in Ukraine and possibly in Moldova. Following these statements, their author was summoned by the Prosecutor General's Office for a hearing on whether to open criminal proceedings with respect to these statements," the Moldovan investigators said in a statement published on their website. Earlier, Moldovan President Maia Sandu signed a decree stripping Kalinin of Moldovan citizenship. For his part, Kalinin said that the incumbent Moldovan leader is simply clearing the field of politicians who could potentially compete against her in the country’s 2024 presidential election.
Moldovan law prohibits the activity of mercenaries. Nevertheless, a Moldovan television channel recently broadcast a story about a group of Moldovan citizens who are fighting in Ukraine on the side of that country's armed forces. They even told reporters that they intended to return home and massacre opposition politicians who oppose Sandu and her ruling Action and Solidarity Party. The journalists who reported the story were later awarded medals by presidential decree, despite the fact that the apartment of one of the protagonists of their story had been searched by police on suspicion of his involvement in drug trafficking.