President Igor Dodon says the decision to ban state officials from travelling to Russia is improper. In a posting on Facebook, the Head of State says he does not know details about the cases mentioned by the Government and Parliament about abusive treatment of Moldovan officials on the Russian border, IPN reports.

According to Igor Dodon, there could have been some problems on the border, but these do not justify a decision that can block the good relations that the Republic of Moldova started to build with the Russian Federation.

“I will continue to go to Moscow and to promote the interests of our country, to work to strengthen the strategic partnership we have with the Russian Federation. I inform you in this connection that a working visit to Russia will take place next week, on March 17-18,” wrote Igor Dodon.

The Moldovan authorities notified the political administration of the Russian Federation of the abusive treatment of Moldovan officials of Parliament, Government, special services and parties of the ruling alliance of Moldova in Russia. In a meeting with Russia’s Ambassador in Chisinau Farit Muhametshin on March 9, Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu and Prime Minister Pavel Filip informed that until this problem is not solved, the Moldovan officials will be recommended to refrain from travelling to Russia.

The note describes the way in which Moldovan officials are abusively stopped before entering Russia, are interrogated, searched and treated in a humiliating way by representatives of Russian special services. It also says about the abusive way in which one of the Russian institutions tried to repeatedly impose international monitoring on a number of Moldovan politicians, including MPs, using false and truncated information for the purpose, during the past several months.