Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on Monday issued a rare statement accusing the West, under US leadership, of turning Moldova into a military outpost aimed at confronting Russia, akin to what has happened over several years with Ukraine.
The SVR's provocative statement said Washington wants to use the country as "cannon fodder" in future hostilities, which is allegedly being fast-tracked by Western foreign policy decision-makers.
The statement further alleged that NATO wants to turn tiny Moldova into a "military testing ground" by modernizing its railways to European specifications and constructing major logistics hubs for future Western military deployments. This also includes serious upgrades to airfields, to host military planes, according to Russian state media.
Russian intelligence also accused Moldovan President Maia Sandu of surrendering national interests to Western powers, dubbing her administration a "comprador regime" - and that her pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity is being propped up and strengthened by the West.
These charged can't exactly be dismissed as paranoia or propaganda, given for example that just last year the United Kingdom inked a new defense pact with Moldova, precisely to counter 'Russian aggression' - as we previously detailed.
The tiny Eastern European nation bordering Ukraine has experienced the same kind of internal political pro-EU vs. pro-Russia tug of war historically on display in other countries such as Ukraine or Georgia.
The UK foreign ministry described the defense agreement as about "building on extensive cooperation between the two countries and strengthening Moldovan resilience against external threats."
One thing which has long alarmed the West is the presence of Russian 'peacekeeping' troops in Moldova's breakaway Transnistria region.
As for Transnistria, although it has diverse ethnic demographics almost equally apportioned between Russians, Moldovans, Romanians and Ukrainians, the Russian demographic slightly ekes out its counterparts with a plurality of 29% of Transnistrians belonging to the group.
The pro-Russian cultural sentiment of the region is exemplified by its flag, which has remained the same as it was when Transnistria was a part of the Soviet Union. That representative Russian demographic, coupled with broader dissatisfaction of the Moldovan government, has fostered support for assimilation into the Russian Federation for quite some time.
