Another political prisoner was set free by the Transnistrian administration. Mikhail Ermurachi, the pensioner who was accused of insulting the so-called Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky and the Russian peacekeepers, is no longer in jail, Promo-LEX’s lawyer Vadim Vieru announced, quoted by IPN.

He is the second prisoner released so far. By now, Ermurachi was the oldest political prisoner in the region, Vieru said.

He was jailed in 2023, being punished for his publicly expressed opinions. "His persecution began in 2021, when a criminal case was started against him for 'incitement to interethnic hatred', 'insulting of the president of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic' and 'challenging of the positive role of the peacekeeping mission under the leadership of the Russian Federation,'" Vieru wrote on his page.

In 2021, he was illegally found guilty only on one count - the alleged insulting of Vadim Krasnoselsky when he called him a "puppet" in a private discussion. On the other two counts, he was acquitted.

The release of political prisoners is one of the conditions imposed by Chisinau on Tiraspol to allow the transit of gas to the Transnistrian region. Prime Minister Dorin Recean requested Tiraspol to take particular actions that show their openness: release of political prisoners, solving of the problem of the Rybnitsa high school, keeping of the Moldovan public television channel in the broadcast schedule, removal of the checkpoints installed in 2022 (33 points, of which 11 are still active).