The former president of Moldova Igor Dodo, close to the Kremlin, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of treason and corruption, announced the prosecution of that country, where the divisions between pro-Western and pro-Russian were accentuated as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.
“Igor Dodon was detained on Tuesday morning, for 72 hours,” announced the spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Mariana Chiorpec. According to her, he is under arrest at the National Center for the Fight against Corruption.
The spokeswoman added that a dozen places, offices related to the former leader and his home in Chisinau, the capital, were being searched.
The former president is the subject of an investigation for “state treason”, “passive corruption”, “financing of a political party by a criminal organization” and “illegal enrichment”.
Police suspect that Dodon obtained money in 2019 from a political ally, Vlad Plahotniuc, who later went into exile and has been sanctioned by the United States.
Dodon presided over Moldova from 2016 to 2020 and was openly supported by Moscow, until the pro-European Maia Sandu won the presidential and legislative elections in 2020 and 2021.
Most of the Moldovan population speaks Romanian, but the country is home to a significant Russian-speaking minority, and power tends to alternate between pro-Russian and pro-Western, fueling political crises on a regular basis.
The Moldovan government fears that Russia could launch an offensive against the country, which is home to the breakaway territory of Transnistria, which borders Ukraine. And more so taking into account that the secessionist region affirms that in April it was the target of shots from Ukraine.
