Moldova’s president says Wagner leader planned coup to remove her

Moldova’s president has claimed Russia’s Wagner paramilitaries were behind a thwarted coup attempt that aimed to depose her as head of state as part of a campaign to destabilise the country.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Maia Sandu said Wagner’s late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had planned the coup earlier this year and warned that Moscow is using various methods, including cash mules and bank cards issued in Dubai, to smuggle money into Moldova to bribe voters ahead of a string of elections.

“The information that we have is that it was a plan prepared by [Prigozhin’s] team,” Sandu said, adding that they wanted to encourage anti-government protests to turn “violent”. “The situation is really dramatic and we have to protect ourselves.”

She stressed that Russia is actively influencing Moldova using gas supply, hybrid attacks, including cyber tools, and threats related to Transnistria, Moldova’s pro-Russian separatist region.

"Russia is going to increase its pressure on Moldova. They tried energy and they failed. They tried to overthrow the government and they failed. And now they are trying massive interference in our elections, using a lot of money," Sandu said.

She stated that Moldovan special services have detected at least €20 million of Russian money which was transferred to Moldova for political purposes.

"The tools they use to bring money to the country are very diverse. We have seen for a while that they were just sending Moldovans to Moscow by plane through Armenia. And these people would each bring [back] €10 000. We’ve seen recently that they were bringing cards, bank cards that were issued in Dubai," the president explained.

Russia has been pressuring Moldova since the beginning of Sandu’s presidency in 2020 because it is not satisfied with her pro-Western position and her intent to achieve EU membership for Moldova.

On February 13, Maia Sandu published the details of the Russian plan for a military coup which, according to her, included attacking state institutions and capturing hostages.