Chisinau, which considers Transnistria its territory, called on the Russian Federation "to restore the process of withdrawing Russian troops and ammunition depots" from this territory.
The Moldovan authorities did not allow the entry into their controlled territory of the Russian military, based in unrecognized Transnistria.
This was stated by the speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Moldova, informs "European Pravda".
The speaker confirmed that "officers of the so-called operational group of Russian troops, an illegal formation that violates the status of neutrality of Moldova," were not allowed into the territory of Moldova.
"In this context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration repeats the position of the Moldovan authorities regarding the need to unconditionally resume the process of withdrawing Russian troops and ammunition depots from our country," the spokesman added.
On the eve of the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed concern about the cases of detention of Russian officers who "were sent to Transnistria to staff the Russian contingent on a rotational basis."
The military contingent of the Russian Federation in Transnistria has the official name of the Operational Group of Russian Forces (OGRF). The OGRF was created from the remnants of the former 14th Russian Army, which was stationed here in the early 1990s and took an active part in the Transnistrian conflict.
The Operational Group of Russian Forces is quite small: two motorized rifle battalions plus a command unit. In total, this is from 1,500 to 1,700 service members of the Russian Federation. The vast majority of the staff of the Operational Group of Russian Forces is made up of local residents with Russian citizenship.
Moldova considers the presence of the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria illegal and demands its withdrawal. Previously, the Russian military could rotate through the land corridor of Ukraine, but since 2014, they have not had such an opportunity.
