Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov doubts that his country will accept the demand of Moldova's newly elected President Maia Sandu to withdraw Russian troops from Transnistria. This was reported by RBC with reference to Russia 24 TV channel.
"It is quite difficult for me to judge what exactly Ms. Sandu meant when she said about the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers, but the fact is that this is unlikely to help settle the conflict, and we will not be able to accept such a rather irresponsible demand," Lavrov stated.
He recalled the purpose of Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria: to prevent a new outbreak of bloody conflict. According to the Russian Foreign Minister, it was the Russian soldiers who stopped the hot phase of the Transnistrian conflict and have been keeping it "frozen" ever since.
As we reported earlier, Sandu claimed that she intended to improve relations with Ukraine.
"We must restore, 'fix' relations between our states after everything they went through in the last four years, during the presidency of Igor Dodon. Unfortunately, my predecessor not only failed to build relations with Ukraine but also, in fact, isolated our state," she noted.
