Ukraine’s Ambassador to Chisinau Marko Shevchenko contradicted journalist Natalia Morari, who recently said that she received information from Ukrainian intelligence services that diplomats of this country are shadowed by Moldovan services. Invited to a podcast, the ambassador said that this is unlikely as Morari appears in the Mirotvorets database as an enemy of Ukraine, while her partner, No. 1 raider in the CIS Veaceslav Platon, was arrested in 2016 in Ukraine by the Ukrainian intelligence services, IPN reports, with reference to the portal dreschide.md.
“When someone says they have received information from intelligence services, I imagine such a situation: a man with black glasses comes and says he represents the Ukrainian intelligence services and gives a file namely to her, asking her to publish it. In general, some of the intelligence services that are not popular in the world or do not have a positive image hide their actions under other slogans, under other colors. I don’t rule it out this variant, but I’m usually very skeptical when someone says they received a secret file from an intelligence service,” said Shevchenko.
The ambassador also said that neither he nor mates from the Embassy felt tailed by the Moldovan services, but admitted that such a procedure can be necessary if there are suspicions that diplomats of a particular country carry out subversive actions against the state in which they work.
“For example, let’s take the embassy of a third country (refers to Russia, e.n.), which raises suspicions that it is carrying out destabilization actions. Do Russian diplomats need to be followed? And based on what data were they expelled a few months ago? So, they were shadowed, data was collected, analyzed and solutions were proposed how this activity can be minimized. Foreign diplomats are usually an object of interest to the intelligence services of the country to which they are assigned. For example, diplomats representing Ukraine, which is the object of a military invasion, are of interest to intelligence services, especially Russian ones. That’s why every Ukrainian diplomat lives with the feeling that they are being shadowed,” noted the diplomat.
The Ukrainian ambassador also pointed out that Natalia Morari’s assertion that she received information from the intelligence services of Ukraine is in contradiction with the fact that the journalist appears in the Mirotvorets database as an agent of the Russian intelligence services, while her partner, the top raider in the CIS Veaceslav Platon, in 2016 was apprehended in Ukraine by the Ukrainian intelligence services. “There is a contradiction in this situation. Formal logic says that if someone transmitted something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was done from Ukraine. It was probably a third country (Russia),” Shevchenko concluded.
Deschide.md reminds that assumptions about the affiliation of Natalia Morari, who obtained higher education in Moscow and then returned to Moldova, with the Russian intelligence services appeared in 2009, after the protests of April 6-7. Even one of the shadow organizers of those destabilization actions, Russian citizen Eduard Baghirov, later spoke of his ties with Morari.
Earlier, the Security and Intelligence Service warned about a campaign of disinformation and manipulation aimed at damaging the relations between the Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities. A group of people, including former intelligence officers, dismissed for acts of corruption, misappropriation of public funds, abuse of power, abduction of persons, unsanctioned interactions with foreign intelligence services are presumably behind those actions.
The statements made by Ukraine’s Ambassador in Chisinau thus confirm the statements of SIS director Alexandru Musteață about the Russian Federation’s attempts to spoil the Moldovan-Ukrainian relations and about similar actions taken in other European states that support Kiev in defending its independence and sovereignty. “Such actions fit into the toolkit of the hybrid war waged by the Russian Federation against the Republic of Moldova, having in this regard a targeted character, of discrediting the efforts of the national authorities and of every citizen of our country to preserve peace and security in the region,” said SIS
