The Kremlin has urged Moldova to exercise caution in its statements about Russian forces stationed in the breakaway Transdniester region just days after a new pro-Western government led by Prime Minister Dorin Recean was sworn in.
Speaking one week after President Maia Sandu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made public comments about an alleged Russian plan to organize a coup in Moldova, masked by opposition protests in Chisinau, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia remains a "responsible party" in Transdniester and continues to perform its "respective tasks" as a peacekeeping force.
Mostly-Russian-speaking Transdniester declared independence from Moldova in 1990 over fears Chisinau could seek reunification with neighboring Romania, with which it shares a common history and language.
The two sides fought a short but bloody war in the spring of 1992 that ended when Russian troops stationed in Transdniester intervened on the separatists' side. They have have claimed to be acting as peacekeepers since.
Some analysts have said that if Russia's war against Ukraine spreads, Moldova is likely one of the next targets for Moscow.
Newly appointed Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean last week called for the demilitarization of Transdniester and the withdrawal of the remaining 1,100 Russian troops from the region.
"We would recommend our Moldovan interlocutors to be very cautious about such statements," Peskov told a press briefing in Moscow on February 20, adding that relations between the two countries were "very tense."
Sandu has repeatedly accused Russia of trying to destabilize Moldova and called for the withdrawal of Russian forces from the region.
Last week she said she had received documents from Ukrainian security services that outlined a Moscow-orchestrated plot with the help of foreign saboteurs allegedly aimed at toppling the country's leadership, preventing it from joining the European Union, and using it in the war against Ukraine.
Zelenskiy previously told a European Union summit on February 9 that Kyiv had "intercepted the plan for the destruction of Moldova by Russian intelligence."
The U.S. State Department said that, while reports about the plot had not been independently confirmed, it is "certainly not outside the bounds of Russian behavior, and we absolutely stand with the Moldovan government and the Moldovan people."
Russia has denied it is plotting to destabilize Moldova, calling the claims “completely unfounded and unsubstantiated."
Several thousand people protested in Chisinau against Sandu and the country's pro-Western government on February 19, with many in the crowd linked to the Russia-friendly Shor Party, which is led by politician and businessman Ilan Shor, who fled Moldova in 2019 after Sandu’s election.
On February 10, a Russian sea-launched cruise missile crossed through Moldovan airspace before it landed in Ukraine as part of a mass missile attack. Following the incident, Moldova summoned the Russian ambassador.