Wagner Group late leader accused of planned coup against ex-Soviet country

The late leader of the mercenary Wagner Group planned to overthrow the pro-Western government in Moldova, the country’s president has claimed.

Yevgeny Prigozhin and his team wanted to encourage anti-government protests in the landlocked country to turn “violent”, according to Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

She told the Financial Times: “The information that we have is that it was a plan prepared by [Prigozhin’s] team.”

The thwarted plan would have been part of a bigger project to destabilise the country and tip its leadership once again towards Russia.

Ms Sandu, who has been the leader of her country since December 2020, continued: “The situation is really dramatic and we have to protect ourselves.”

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While Mr Prigozhin died in August after his private jet crashed north of Moscow, the threat to Moldova remains, Ms Sandu believes.

The Moldovan president, who wants to take her country into the European Union and voiced her support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the country, has also accused Moscow of attempting to topple her government through various methods.

Ms Sandu’s claims come after a string of warnings and reports regarding Russia trying to put pressure on the pro-Western leader.

Both EU and US officials claimed in February that Russia was planning to overthrow Ms Sandu’s government.

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In mid-March, Moldovan police said to have foiled a plot led by groups of Russia-backed individuals trained to cause mass unrest during a protest against the government.

The pro-Russian actors were meant to take advantage of the anger felt by many citizens who saw inflation spiking and their bills rise up to six times in the months that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The steep rise in the cost of living was partially caused by Moscow reportedly trying to use Moldova’s high reliance on Russian gas as political leverage in exchange for Ms Sandu’s nation’s weaker ties with the EU.

Ahead of this reportedly foiled plot, Moldova’s border police had refused entry to an alleged member of Wagner.

In May, the EU issued sanctions on pro-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor, accused of “destabilising, undermining or threatening the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Moldova”. The US had already sanctioned Mr Shor in October 2022 over his association with the Russian government.

Weeks after Brussels’ sanctions, Mr Shor’s party Șor was declared unconstitutional by the Moldovan government.

Russia, which has a military present in Moldova as some 1,500 of its troops are stationed in the breakaway Transnistria region – has also been tipped to be carrying out “hybrid warfare” in the nation.

Professor Stefan Wolff, an international security expert at the University of Birmingham, previously told Sky News: “The majority of Moldovans want to move closer to Europe, and that’s obviously something that Russia is trying to prevent, and it’s using these hybrid warfare means to accomplish that.

“Moscow can then say, well, look, it’s a pro-European govern ment and see how that government has run the country into the ground.”

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