Page 38 - bne IntelliNews magazine February 2025

38 I Southeast Europe bne February 2025
Russian presidential advisor Nikolai Patrushev blamed the pro-EU authorities in Chisinau for the ongoing energy crisis in Moldova. / mid.ru
Russian presidential adviser warns Moldova may “cease to exist”
Iulian Ernst in Bucharest
Influential Russian presidential advisor Nikolai Patrushev voiced unprecedentedly aggressive rhetoric against Moldova, saying the country may “cease to exist” in an an interview given to Komsomolskaia Pravda and broadly circulated in the Russian media.
Patrushev blamed the pro-EU authorities in Chisinau for the ongoing energy crisis in Moldova that followed Gazprom’s cut off of gas supplies on January 1. This sparked a humanitarian and economic crisis within the pro- Russian separatist Transnistria region within Moldova, which relied heavily on Russian gas both for its own use and
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to produce electricity for the rest of the country. The move is seen as an attempt by Russia to destabilise Moldova ahead of this year’s general election.
Speaking to Komsomolskaia Pravda, Patrushev said Moldova may “cease to exist as a state,” if it continues the “aggressive anti-Russian policy”.
“I do not exclude that the aggressive anti-Russian policy from Chisinau
will lead to the fact that Moldova will either become part of another state or will cease to exist. In this situation,
we can look at the example of Ukraine, where neo-Nazism and Russophobia led the country to collapse, and
this long before the special military
“I do not exclude that the aggressive anti-Russian policy from Chisinau will lead to the fact that Moldova will either become part of another state or will cease to exist”