Moldova

The Moldovan Border Police detained lawmaker Yevhen Yakovenko, 57, from Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region on Sunday evening and placed him in pre-trial detention in Chisinau.

Interpol issued an international 'red notice' for Yakovenko's arrest at the request of the Belarusian authorities.

There have been some positive developments. In 2019, the Moldovan LGBT rights group Genderdoc-M successfully held a Pride march in the capital Chisinau, though, unfortunately, participants had to be accompanied by police escort.

Suspense

ormer President of Moldova Igor Dodon (C) is escorted by law officers during the court hearing process in Chisinau, Moldova, 26 May 2022. Former President of Moldova Igor Dodon is accused of passive corruption, illegal party financing, betrayal of the homeland and illicit enrichment. EPA-EFE/DUMITRU DORU

Moldova will take "specific measures" if there are signs of increased Russian military activity in the nearby Mykolaiv-Odesa region of Ukraine, the Minister of Defence, Anatol Nosatii, said on Wednesday.

The ex-President's arrest for corruption has outraged Moldova's pro-Russian parties - but the pro-Western government seems confident it can survive the backlash.

The separatist leader in Transnistria Vadim Krasnoselsky on Friday said he was proposing Alexander Rosenberg, the former Minister of Agriculture, as Prime Minister, after Alexander Martinov was fired on Thursday.

Former Moldovan president Igor Dodon on Wednesday said his detention on Tuesday on treason charges was "a political case", claiming that the governing pro-European Action and Solidarity Party, PAS, was pusuing a vendetta.

Pro-Russian former Moldovan President Igor Dodon was detained by prosecutors on Tuesday on four charges including corruption and treason.

Investigators searched Dodon's Chisinau home, his mother's house and a villa being built by the Dodon family by the Dniester River, seizing tens of thousands of euros in cash and half a million lei [25,000 euros], anti-graft prosecutors said.

Several thousand people in Moldova's capital Chisinau took part in an "Immortal Regiment" march on Monday, organised by the pro-Russian Socialist Party, PSRM, many of them breaking a new law that bans the display of symbols glorifying the former Soviet communist regime.

Romania's Energy Minister, Virgil Popescu, on Wednesday said Romania will produce more natural gas than it needs once it starts extracting gas from the Black Sea area - and will then be in a position to export to countries in the region, with Moldova a priority.