Detained head of ethnic minority Gagauz seeks help from Putin

28/3/2025 6:21

Police prevented another

pro-Russian opposition politician from leaving ex-Soviet Moldova

on Thursday as the detention of the leader of the country's

pro-Russian Gagauz ethnic minority further strained relations

with Moscow.



Eugenia Gutul, the leader, or bashkan, of Gagauzia, has been

in detention since being stopped at the airport on Tuesday in

connection with a corruption probe. On Thursday, she urged

Russian President Vladimir Putin to help secure her release.



Russia has denounced her detention, saying Moldova is

persecuting politicians opposed to pro-European President

Maia Sandu. Russia raised Gutul's detention during a closed-door

United Nations Security Council meeting on Thursday.



"The whole region is not stable and we just thought it our

responsibility to raise the awareness of the members of the

council to this absolutely intolerable situation," Russia's

deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters.



Moldova's U.N. Ambassador Gheorghe Leuca told reporters that

Gutul's detention had nothing to do with her political role,

accusing her of being involved in a criminal organization. He

stressed that Moldova was governed by the rule of law.



Two pro-Russian parliamentarians, also charged with

corruption, have disappeared in the past week.



All those under suspicion or facing charges are associates

of fugitive pro-Russian business magnate Ilan Shor, sentenced to

15 years in prison in connection with the 2014-2015

disappearance of $1 billion from the Moldovan banking system.



Alexei Lungu, a member of the pro-Russian opposition, was

stopped at Chisinau airport on Thursday and told he could not

leave the country. He told Reuters the action amounted to

"revenge and political terror."



"We will fight - both openly and lawfully. Neither

intimidation nor blackmail will stop us," he said.



Gagauzia, a region of 140,000 people in the south of

Moldova, is dominated by ethnic Turks who favour close ties with

Russia, adhere to Orthodox Christianity and have had uneasy

relations with central authorities since Moldovan independence

in 1991.



In her appeal, Gagauz leader Gutul asked Putin "to use the

entire arsenal of diplomatic, political and legal means to put

pressure on Moldovan authorities to secure an immediate end to

political repression and my rapid release." She issued a similar

appeal to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.



A Chisinau court postponed until Friday a decision on a

prosecution request to extend her 72-hour detention.



Gutul is due to be sentenced soon on charges of corruption

and financing a political bloc led by Shor from exile in Russia.



Sandu is spearheading a drive to secure European Union

membership for Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, and

has never recognised Gutul's 2023 election as bashkan.



The president has denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

which is on Moldova's eastern border, and has accused the

Kremlin of trying to unseat her.



Gutul's detention follows the unexplained disappearance last

week of pro-Russian parliamentarian Alexandr Nesterovschi on the

day he was sentenced to 12 years in prison on similar corruption

charges. A second lawmaker, Irina Lozovan, awaiting a verdict on

similar charges, has also disappeared.



Moldovan authorities accuse Shor of funnelling money into

the country illegally with the aim of using his banned "Victory"

bloc to secure the election of pro-Russian lawmakers in a

parliamentary poll later this year.