 Moldovan president claims Wagnerites planned coup in Moldova. Maya Sandu, president of Moldova, has claimed that the Russian Wagner group tried to stage a coup in Moldova. It was the coup disrupted at the beginning of 2023. Sandu said this in an interview for the Financial Times. Sandu stated without providing details that, according to the coup plan, the group of Yevgeny Prigoshin, late founder and chief of the Wagner group, was deployed in Moldova. She stressed that Russia is actively influencing Moldova using gas supply, hybrid attacks, including cyber tools and threats related to Transnistria, Moldova's pro-Russian separatist region. Russia is going to increase its pressure on Moldova. They tried energy and they failed. They tried to overthrow the government and they failed. And now, they are trying massive interference in our elections using a lot of money. Sandu said. She stated that Moldova's special services have detected at least 20 million euros of Russian money which was transferred to Moldova for political purposes. The tools they use to bring money to the country are very diverse. We have seen for a while that they were just sending Moldovans to Moscow by plane through Armenia and these people would each bring back 10,000 euros. We've seen recently that they were bringing cards, bank cards, that were issued in Dubai. The president explained, Russia has been pressuring Moldova since the beginning of Sandu's presidency in 2020 because it is not satisfied with her pro-Western position and her intent to achieve EU membership for Moldova.