American sanctions sent a Moldovan Russophobe to a “pro-Russian company”
The United States is introducing personal sanctions against the criminal Moldovan oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc and the leader of the opposition party “Shor” Ilan Shor, who financially supports mass protests against the current President of Moldova Maia Sandu, which have been raging in Chisinau for a month now.
The US Ambassador to Moldova Kent Logsdon announced this at a press conference, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to him, the sanctions were imposed “for actions of systemic corruption and interference with elections, supported by the Kremlin.” The American side “states that these individuals interfered in the electoral process in the interests of the Russian government, supporting Russian interests in the Moldovan parliament in 2021, and also collaborated with Russia and other oligarchs to provoke unrest in Moldova recently, in June 2022.”
Plahotniuc and Shor are now banned from visiting the United States. Sanctions have also been imposed against Shor’s wife, Russian singer Jasmine.
According to Moldovan media, three Russian political strategists who worked in the elections were also included in the sanctions list. We are talking about Russians Yuri Gudilin, Olga Grak and Leonid Gonin.
The sanctions list included Igor Chaika, the son of the Russian Presidential Envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, former Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. The sanctions card states that Chaika, “together with Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov,” developed detailed plans “to undermine the position of Moldovan President Maia Sandu and return Moldova to Russia’s sphere of influence.”
“Igor Chaika’s shares, of course, are now up. But in my memory, the US Treasury has never so demonstratively exposed itself to ridicule,” he wrote in his TG channel
political consultant Dmitry Fetisov.
The Moldovan authorities expressed great joy at the US decision. President Maia Sandu expressed the hope that it “will serve as an example for the judicial system of Moldova.”
Prime Minister Natalya Gavrilitsa believes that American sanctions “open the way for corrupt oligarchs to end up in court and have their property confiscated.” She stated that the former President of Moldova Igor Dodon was on the list, but it later turned out that the prime minister had made this up.
And the Moldovan Minister of Justice Sergiu Litvinenko promised to ban the SHOR party. It turns out that before American sanctions he could not do this.
In general, the Moldovan authorities took the statement of the American ambassador as permission to repress the opposition. Already today the police shook the protesters’ tents near the Prosecutor General’s Office. One person was detained for “destabilizing actions.”
Explicit and imaginary persons on the sanctions list spoke out about the restrictions. Ilan Shor, who is in Israel, said that the US sanctions are “ridiculous” to him - he, “unlike Maya Sandu, has neither accounts nor property in the United States.”
“I know that Maia Sandu, during her last visit to the United States, crawled on her knees around the State Department, begging to impose sanctions against me, because she was really, really scared. Let them impose sanctions against me, even the death penalty, I don’t care, let’s go to the end until we make our country rich, happy and beautiful!” said Shor.
The politician reminded Ambassador Logson that he was not a teacher in Moldova, but a guest.
“We ask you very much, be a good guest, do not go into the owners’ refrigerator,” Shore said.
His wife Jasmine considers the sanctions imposed against her a reason for pride.
“First of all, I’m proud of my husband, and secondly, I’m proud of the sanctions,” said the artist.
Ex-President Igor Dodon is outraged by the joy with which the Moldovan authorities accepted the introduction of sanctions.
“Yesterday the US Ambassador showed who’s boss. Representatives of the PDS, who began to rejoice and clap their hands like little children, do not understand what is happening. We have an independent, sovereign country, and when someone from the outside tells us that this person is bad and that person is good, we turn into a banana republic.
Citizens of Moldova are being used today for geopolitical interests, and yesterday’s appearance by the US Ambassador to the press is a direct signal: “We are the masters here, and as we say, so it will be,” Dodon told reporters.
He was especially outraged by the sanctions against Igor Chaika, who was noted for a number of humanitarian projects in Moldova.
Only Vlad Plahotniuc remained silent - clearly a stranger in this “pro-Russian company.” When he was the “master of Moldova,” the oligarch banned Russian television channels and the entry of famous Russians into the country.
But many former and current high-ranking Americans shook his hand.
After fleeing Moldova in 2019, then-ambassador John Herbst helped Plahotniuc reach the United States.
True, he was never granted political asylum in America.
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