Emergency meeting of Moldova’s Security Council

President of Moldova Nicolae Timofti chaired the Security Council’s emergency meeting on May 28, the Moldovan president’s press office said.

In the course of the meeting, President Timofti demanded the Security Council members to speed up the development and approval of a new National Security Strategy that would “meet today’s geopolitical realities.”

As EADaily reported earlier today, on May 28, Moldovan frontier guards detained another Russian serviceman at the international airport.  Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Zhulinsky was not allowed to Moldova when it turned out that he was going to Transnistria. According to the Moldovan law-enforcement, Zhulinsky introduced himself as a peacekeeper, but had no documents confirming that he is a contract officer of the operative group of the Russian troops in Transnistria.   If he were not deported, he would be an officer of the information countermeasures department.  Eventually, he was sent back to Moscow.

Over the last two weeks, five Russian officers travelling to Transnistria were deported to Moscow. On May 21, Sergey Mokshantsev, Director of the Dniester-Prut RISS center, flew to Chisinau from Moscow, but was not allowed to Moldova.

Explaining the deportations of Russian officers, the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration says the Moldovan authorities must be informed about such trips beforehand, at least a month earlier.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria, in turn, calls Moldova’s actions in all fields of the relations with Transnistia “extremely destructive, and undermining the fundamental principles of the Moldovan-Transnistrian conflict settlement.”  In this light, the Transnistrian Foreign Ministry once again warns the Moldovan partners “against further pressures on Transnistria” saying “such destructive steps fuel the tensions and may have extremely negative consequences for both the relations of the conflicting parties and the situation in the region, at large.”