The EU foreign ministers are set to approve sanctions on those deemed responsible for destabilizing Moldova, where Russian influence persists. An initial sanctions regime was adopted in 2023 to protect Moldova from Moscow-backed political control attempts. Currently, 16 individuals and two organizations are blacklisted, primarily fugitive oligarchs Vlad Plahotniuc and Ilan Shor. A new set of seven individuals and three entities linked to Shor is proposed for sanctions, emphasizing actions such as false information dissemination and vote-buying schemes.
The proposed new batch of listings, seen by RFE/RL, consists of seven individuals and three entities -- all in one way or another linked to Shor.
Shor's political party SOR was outlawed in 2023, but a year later he launched a new political bloc from Moscow called Victory/Pobeda, which is one of the three entities proposed for sanctioning by the EU.
The official sanction text notes that 'the Victory/Pobeda Political Bloc is involved in spreading false information and in vote-buying schemes' during both the referendum last year and the presidential election.
A7 has also been accused of helping facilitate cross-border financial transfers for Russian clients in the fallout from the bank fraud scandal.
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