By Alexander Tanas
CHISINAU, March 2 (Reuters) – Russia has no proper to lecture on democracy, the Moldovan Overseas Ministry stated in an announcement on Saturday, as tensions between the 2 international locations have risen after Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria area requested Moscow for assist.
Russian Overseas Minister Sergei Lavrov stated earlier within the week that the Moldovan authorities “is following within the footsteps of Kyiv” after Transdniestria turned to Moscow to assist its financial system stand up to “strain” from the Moldovan authorities, which the Chisinau administration dismissed as a propaganda occasion.
“Minister Lavrov and the Kremlin regime haven’t any ethical proper to lecture on democracy and freedom,” Moldova’s Overseas Ministry stated in an announcement issued on Saturday.
“A rustic that imprisons opposition politicians and kills them, unreasonably assaults its neighbours, has nothing to supply the world however blood and ache.”
On Saturday, Russians queued to put flowers on the grave of Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic inside Russia, who died on the age of 47 in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16. Supporters stated he had been murdered.
Navalny’s loss of life got here almost two years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a battle that has no finish in sight and during which civilians proceed to die.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked fears that Moscow would possibly search to comb westward by southern Ukraine all the best way to the Transdniestria separatist area, which says it has 220,000 Russian residents.
Relations between Moldova and Russia have additionally frayed because the Chisinau authorities has steered a pro-European course and accused Moscow of making an attempt to destabilise it.
“We’re constructing a European future so that every one our residents, no matter language and ethnicity, stay in peace and prosperity,” the Moldovan Overseas Ministry stated in its Saturday’s assertion.
(Reporting by Alexander Tanas; further reporting by Elaine Monaghan and Lidia Kelly; modifying by Jonathan Oatis Writing by Lidia Kelly;)
