Criminal oligarch Plahotniuc announced his return to Moldovan politics

Criminal oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, once nicknamed “the master of Moldova,” intends to return to politics. He stated this in an interview with the Tribuna publication, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

“I decided to return to Moldovan politics. I am a politician who knows how to solve crisis situations, and my time has come,” Plahotniuc said.

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The oligarch recalled that back in 2019, when he was forced to urgently flee Moldova, he predicted that his opponents “still won’t get power, they will discredit themselves.”

“I did not appear in the public arena for almost three years because I wanted to give the new coalition an opportunity to demonstrate its “skills.” How successful they are is evident from the situation in the country. The period of leniency granted to the anti-Plahotniukov governments has ended. Now it’s my turn to return to power and demonstrate how the country should be governed during a crisis,” Plahotniuc said.

He also spoke out on the topic of the conflict in Ukraine.

"I am Russian. I have been and will always be with the Moldovans. I apologize to the Ukrainians for what is happening in Ukraine. These wounds will heal. We Moldovans must be generous and take care of refugees. We cannot influence the course of military operations in Ukraine. What happens there depends on other factors, on other forces, on other geopolitical players. The country's leadership should not engage in declarative geopolitics, but care about the safety of people. We must under no circumstances allow the expansion of this war into the territory of sovereign Moldova,” Plahotniuc said.

Judging by the interview, he intends to engage in Moldovan politics remotely for now. Despite Plahotniuc's bad reputation, even his opponents are ready to recognize his strengths.

“Not a politician, of course, but a manager. And also with dubious approaches. To build his own and make it the best, he destroyed competitors. But, as practice shows, he is not the worst and at least knows what he wants,” TV journalist Elena Levitskaya-Pakhomova wrote in her TG channel.

“But I said a month ago that people already miss the times of Plahotniuc and believe that it was better with him,” recalls political scientist Ernest Vardanyan.

Plahotniuc fled the country after a conversation with the then US Ambassador to Chisinau Derek Hogan. He convinced him not to resist and to transfer power to the parties of the conditionally pro-Russian Igor Dodon and the pro-Western Maia Sandu who won the parliamentary elections. The representative of Russia, Dmitry Kozak, also took part in resolving the political crisis.

On June 12, 2020, the Chisinau Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the trial court to issue a warrant for the arrest of Plahotniuc in absentia. In Moldova, the fugitive oligarch is accused of creating a criminal group, extortion and fraud. It is associated, among other things, with the disappearance of more than $1 billion (this amount is more than one tenth of the country's annual GDP) from the accounts of the country's largest banks in 2012-2014.

Several criminal cases have been opened against Plahotniuc in Russia. In August 2019, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow arrested the oligarch in absentia in a criminal case for creating a criminal community for the purpose of organizing drug trafficking into the Russian Federation.

“You must remember that my cases were opened in Russia, starting in 2016, as a result of our struggle to remove our country from Russian influence. And new cases have already appeared when power in the country passed to representatives of Russia,” Plahotniuc explained this fact in an interview with Tribune.

In the summer of 2020, the US Federal Court rejected Plahotniuc’s application for political asylum. This happened after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that “Plahotniuc’s corrupt actions have jeopardized the independence of democratic institutions in Moldova.”

2 days ago, the United States imposed personal sanctions against Plahotniuc.

“This effect was to be expected after the lamentations and persistence of Maia Sandu in front of foreign offices. The sanctions were probably introduced to appease her. However, this does not change my determination to return to politics and lead the country out of the crisis,” Plahotniuc said.