CHISINAU, Moldova—Moldova’s intelligence agency said Monday that two foreign nationals who posed as tourists have been expelled from the country and banned from returning for 10 years after they were caught carrying out “subversive actions” to destabilize Moldova.
The Intelligence and Security Service, SIS, said in a statement that the pair were trained in data and information gathering “for the implementation of a plan to destabilize the internal situation in the country,” to provoke what it described as “violent change” to Moldova’s constitutional order.
The SIS did not state when the foreign nationals arrived in Moldova, which countries they were from, or for whom they were allegedly working.
The agency said the pair carried out subversive actions that included investigating “various locations near government offices and critical infrastructure,” and that they were coordinated “from the shadows by a group of individuals affiliated with a conspiratorial network of overseas political technology and social engineering experts.”
The SIS added that the foreign nationals were actively monitoring and documenting social and political processes in Moldova, including protests it said were “organized in the capital by certain political forces.”
Last Sunday, several thousand anti-government protesters rallied in the capital, Chisinau, to demand the new government fully cover energy bills amid a cost-of-living crisis. They also demanded that pro-Western President Maia Sandu step down.
“Through violent actions, masked under protests of the so-called opposition, the change of power in Chisinau would be forced,” she said. “In carrying out the plan, the authors rely on several internal forces, but especially on criminal groups such as the Shor formation and all of its derivatives.”
In June, Moldova, a country of about 2.6 million people, was granted EU candidate status, the same day as Ukraine.
