Chisinau

A Kyiv official said on Monday that his country could ban all imports from Moldova if the authorities in Chisinau temporarily halt grain imports from Ukraine amid the threat of protests by Moldovan farmers.

The National Anticorruption Centre, together with prosecutors and investigative officers, carried out 24 raids on Thursday, after which two employees of the General Directorate of Medical and Social Assistance of the Chisinau Municipal Council, including the head of the Health Directorate, Boris Gîlcă, were detained for 72 hours.

The EU member states approved today a total of 70 million euros in aid for the armed forces of Moldova and Georgia.

Moldova's autonomous region of Gagauzia goes to elections on Sunday for a new governor, or Bashkan, with eight candidates in the race, most of them with pro-Russian views.

The elections in Gagauzia represent a first test before local elections throughout the country due in autumn, and for presidential elections that will take place next year.

After Russia announced on Tuesday evening that it had banned three pro-European Moldovan MPs and the Interior Minister, the targeted politicians said they had no plans to go there anyway.

The authorities in Moscow banned Interior Minister Ana Revenco and three deputies of the Action and Solidarity Party, PAS, Oazu Nantoi, Olesea Stamate and Lilian Carp.

Moldova expressed concern on Friday after Russian soldiers stationed in the breakaway region of Transnistrian, participating in the peacekeeping mission in the buffer zone between Moldova and the region, undertook military manoeuvres without seeking Chisinau's consent.

President Maia Sandu's call for a major rally in support of Moldova's European Union membership aspirations on May 21 in Chisinau's central square got a boost on Monday as three small pro-European political parties said they would take part.

Criminal Ties

Montage by BIRN

In 2015, North Macedonia took what was then both a revolutionary and controversial step in the region by legalizing the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal purposes. Since 2017, the industry truly took off in the country, encouraged by a government which saw it as an economic growth opportunity.

President Maia Sandu said on Monday evening after a meeting of Moldova's Supreme Security Council that a new Anti-Corruption Court will be operational within three months at most and will hear cases of crime within the judicial system as well as major corruption cases.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Romania of occupying Bessarabia until 1940. She was angered by a Romanian Foreign Ministry announcement praising the replacement of the Moldovan language with Romanian in all Moldovan laws as a "restoration of scientific truth".