Maia Sandu, the president of Moldova, informed the Financial Times that Evgeny Prigozhin intended to remove her from office.
President Maia Sandu has asserted that the murdered leader of the Wagner Group, Evgeny Prigozhin, attempted to instigate a coup in Moldova with the intention of toppling the nation’s pro-Western administration. Russia has long been accused by Sandu of attempting to depose her while repressing her pro-Moscow opponents.
In an interview with the Financial Times that was published on Friday, Sandu stated, “According to the information that we have, it was a plan prepared by [Prigozhin’s] team.” The late Wagner chief allegedly intended to incite anti-government demonstrations to become “violent,” without giving any further information, according to Sandu.
Earlier this year, Wagner-led plans to depose Sandu and install a Russian-aligned leader were allegedly discovered, according to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Then Sandu came out and revealed that approximately 200 foreign nationals, including one Wagner gang member, had been evicted by Moldovan authorities.
Beyond the assertions of Sandu and Zelensky, no proof of a coup attempt was been made public.
In her interview with the Financial Times, Sandu also claimed that Russia was complicit in a conspiracy to use bank cards created in Dubai to bribe Moldovan opposition figures. They attempted to topple the government but were unsuccessful. They are currently employing a lot of money to attempt a big interference in our elections, she added.
Ilan Shor, a pro-Russian politician whose party won the regional governorship election in May, is the opposition official to whom she was alluding. Sandu’s administration declared the election of a pro-Moscow governor to be fraudulent right away, and Shor’s party was outlawed the next month.
The population of Moldova, a former Soviet republic, is divided between supporters of stronger ties to Moscow and those of Western integration. When it was banned, Shor’s party was the second-most popular in Moldova, and Sandu’s administration had previously been charged with creating treason and corruption allegations against Igor Dodon, a different pro-Russian rival.
Dodon stated last month that Sandu’s one mission from those in charge of her from overseas is to enlist Moldova in NATO.
It is unlikely that Prigozhin’s involvement in the purported conspiracy will ever be proven. On August 23, a jet crash in Russia’s Tver Region claimed the lives of the head of the private military as well as numerous other important Wagner officials. A “deliberate atrocity” cannot be ruled out, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who claimed this in August when the incident’s cause was being examined.
In May, Ukrainian forces were routed from the vital city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), thanks in large part to the efforts of Prigozhin’s Wagner Group soldiers. Prigozhin, however, lost favour with the Kremlin after he organised a mutiny against the Russian Defence Ministry in June. After the failed uprising, Prigozhin struck a settlement that saw him and part of his soldiers banished to Belarus, while the others were placed under Russian military control.
