Moldova arrests 74 over ‘Russian plan to incite mass riots’

Moldova has arrested scores of suspected saboteurs it claims were trained by Russia to provoke rioting before key elections this weekend.

Maia Sandu, the president, accused Moscow of spending “hundreds of millions of euros to buy hundreds of thousands of votes” for pro-Russian parties ahead of the vote.

The parliamentary election on Sunday will either accelerate Moldova’s entry to the European Union or see it forge ties with Moscow.

Police carried out 250 raids and arrested 74 people “trained in Serbia by Russian instructors in violent tactics against police and the use of firearms”, Stanislav Secrieru, Moldova’s national security adviser, said on Monday.

Read more: The Times (London)