A quiet but important event last week put Moldova – for the first time since it left the USSR in 1991 – at the centre of a classic East-West practice: exchanging spies.
The operation included negotiating and releasing two Moldovan intelligence officers held in Moscow, and handing over a dual-national citizen accused of spying in Romania.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu stated on the day of the exchange, April 28, that in order to bring back the two Security and Intelligence Service, SIS, officers, Moldova had to offer two others – a Russian citizen, Nina Popova, who had acted against Moldova and was detained last year, and Alexandru Balan, accused of treason in the interest of Belarus.
“For our country, this is a gain that cannot be measured by a simple mathematical equation. We have brought home two citizens who work for the Republic of Moldova, giving up in exchange two detainees who worked against the Republic of Moldova,” Sandu explained.