The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation accuses Moldova’s President Maia Sandu of preparing a plan for a military operation to take control of the Transnistrian region, EFE reports, quoted by Agerpres. According to the SVR, the head of state recently had a meeting with the top leadership of the government centering on energy security, which ended with her words about the need to work out such a plan and cease the Russian peacekeeping presence in the region, IPN reports.

"No one can guarantee that the President of the Republic of Moldova will not try to start a war in the region," the SVR said in a statement, quoted by the official Russian news agency TASS.

President Maia Sandu, according to the SVR’s press release, requested to design a plan to take over the Transnistrian power plant, which runs on Russian gas and on whose supply the Republic of Moldova depends almost entirely.

President Sandu and Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Oleg Serebrian repeatedly pleaded for the peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. The withdrawal of the Russian troops from the territory of the Republic of Moldova is a first condition. "We are in favor of the peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. But the demilitarization of the region and the withdrawal of the Russian troops are the first condition. It is difficult to imagine reintegration with the presence of Russian troops in the region," President Sandu stressed at a press conference last weeks.

The Moldovan authorities seek the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the Transnistrian separatist region and the arsenal that has been stored there since the Soviet period.