Sandu, who defeated the current president and great Kremlin friend Igor Dodon in the Moldovan presidential election, said at a news conference on Monday that Russia should withdraw its troops from Transnistria and that she would like to start a dialogue with Russia on this, Radio Liberty. She noted that two Russian military groups were stationed in Transnistria. One of them guards ammunition depots in the village of Kolbasna. Sandu stressed that the group was located there without a special agreement with the Moldovan government and should be exported to Russia together with ammunition in its guarded military warehouses. The second group is Russian soldiers, who are part of the peacekeeping contingent. Sandu believes that there is no threat of a resumption of armed conflict in the region, so these Russian peacekeepers could be replaced by a civilian mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). “We are an independent country that does not want foreign troops stationed on its territory,” Sandu said. At the same time, she emphasized that she wanted to achieve this through negotiations and was in favor of maintaining good relations with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Russia would not accept such a “rather irresponsible demand”, TASS reports. The Minister considers that Russian peacekeepers, like peacekeepers from Moldova and Ukraine, are in Transnistria in accordance with internationally agreed conflict resolution decisions approved by the OSCE.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Russian troops in Transnistria the status quo change could lead to serious destabilization in the region. “We therefore expect that everything will be discussed and that there will be no rapid movement in this regard,” a Kremlin spokesman said. He also added that the Kremlin is continuing its constructive dialogue with former Moldovan President Dodon and hopes that such constructivism will continue, RIA Novosti.
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