Zakharova: Russia Will Take Adequate Measures if Moldova Joins EU Sanctions

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman noted that Moscow has always viewed the Moldovan people as friendly. Russia will be forced to take respective measures if Moldova joins the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions decisions. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said this at a briefing on Thursday, tass.ru reports. Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Nicu Popescu said that Moldova plans to join further EU restrictive measures against some Russian citizens in the near future. “As you know, once adopted, these steps of the EU were not left without our response. If and when official Chisinau joins these restrictions, we will be forced to take adequate responses in relation to the Moldovan side. I would like to stress that this will not be our choice, this will be a response to unfriendly steps,” she said. Commenting on Popescu’s statement, Zakharova said that it was obviously about Chisinau’s plans to join the so-called global regime of human rights sanctions approved by the EU Council in December 2020. “Already in early March, the statements of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy [Josep] Borrell, Moldova’s accession to some of these sanctions was presented as a fait accompli. Amazing, isn’t it? A country that appears to be sovereign, but decisions which it has not even taken yet are being made and voiced for it,” she added. “I would like to understand whether it is the EU that is running ahead of the train, or the official Chisinau is late with formalizing the decisions made in Brussels. This is a question that, probably, Moldovan citizens themselves would like to know the answer to.” According to Zakharova, it is difficult not to notice how, in an effort to please their Western curators, the Moldovan authorities are particularly zealous in continuing their Russophobic agenda, not only by joining the EU anti-Russian sanctions. She recalled that on March 22, the Moldovan Information and Security Service issued orders to block five more websites of the Russian news agency Sputnik. The diplomat also added that Russia has always treated the Moldovan people as friendly. “We have many aspects that bind us in the historical and modern context: the economy, business, humanitarian and family ties. Today official Chisinau and its Western supervisors seek to artificially destroy all this. Russia <...> always advocates the preservation and mutually beneficial development of multilateral ties which have always enriched our countries and peoples,” Zakharova concluded.