"I will return to free Moldova"

What is the reason for the landing of the Governor of Gagauzia Evgenia Gutsul? Not that the authorities eliminate the competitor. This is a lunge against a completely different enemy

Last Tuesday, August 5, the Buyukana district in Chisinau sentenced to seven years in prison Bashkan (governor) of Gagauzia Evgeny Gutsul. In the same criminal case to the six years of the colony, the court sentenced Svetlana Popan, a former secretary of the Shor party banned in Moldova.

The court recognized as proven that the defendants committed a crime under Art. 181.3 of the Criminal Code of Moldova - illegal financing of the election participant. The second part of this article for financing the political activities of parties “from the sources prohibited by law”, “in the interests of an organized criminal group or a criminal organization”, and at the same time in “especially large sizes” provides for the punishment of seven to 15 years in colony.

It turns out that Gutsul was sentenced to the lower bar, and the punishment of the priest is even below the lower limit.

The Moldavian Criminal Code provides for a delay in the execution of a sentence for women with children under the age of 8 years, but only for those who have been convicted for up to five years. Nevertheless, it is the small children of Evgenia Gutsul (and her two of them) today are most often mentioned by critics of the sentence. And not only children, but also the elections to the Moldovan Parliament, scheduled for September 28.

• Thus, the Kremlin’s official representative Dmitry Peskov called the Gutsul verdict “a model of politically motivated decision” and “an attempt to provide undisguised and illegal pressure on political opponents during the election campaign”.

• Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko called the verdict a monstrous act of political repression in its cynicity. In her Telegram channel, Matvienko wrote that it was "also a manifestation of the animal medieval essence of specific people, with specific names and surnames on which the West relied."

• The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the verdict against Gutsul "a violation of human rights, neglect of the principle of the rule of law and the abandonment of political pluralism."

• The vice speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev in his Telegram channel also commented on the court decision made in Chisinau: “It is shocked by the injustice and cruelty of the verdict of the Moldovan authorities Evgenia Hutsul, the excellent policy and mother of two young children. This is the decision of the authorities, not the court. And this is the reprisal against the political opponent on the eve of the parliamentary elections on September 28. ” Leave the question about the mirror aside ...

Gagauzia in the international arena

For so far, those who criticize the verdict, and those who consider it legal and fair, are preferred to keep silent about the plot of the criminal case against Evgenia Gutsul. The verdict itself, in which 482 pages have not yet been released. But the key positions of the prosecution are known.

According to the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Moldova, Evgenia Gutsul, being the secretary of the Shor party, which was recognized as unconstitutional in 2023, from 2019 to 2022 regularly flew to Russia, from where it allegedly brought about 2 million 150 thousand euros (or 42 million in Moldavian Leiha).

In addition, Gutsul was engaged in coordinating the work of the party’s party offices of the Shor party, which gave reason to accuse her of “conscious receipt of funds from an organized criminal group”.

The Party "Shor" is the brainchild of the Moldavian oligarch Ilan Shor, sentenced in Moldova by 15 years in prison for complicity in theft from the country's budget, equivalent to one billion dollars. The verdict was sentenced in absentia, because since 2019, Shor does not appear in Moldova. He, being put on the international wanted list, lives in Moscow. At the request of Moldova about the extraction of Shor to Chisinau, Russia refused.

Shor does not hide that it is from Moscow that he leads his party and finances party work from his “personal money”.

It was this cash, which Yevgeny Gutsul brought to Moldova, according to investigators and according to the testimony of witnesses from among the former activists of the Shor party, was paid “in envelopes” the work of activists, hired employees and ordinary citizens of Moldova who participated in protests.

Until the summer of 2023, Evgenia Gutsul was on maternity leave. It was precisely by Ilan Shor who brought her to the big Moldavian policy. Two weeks before the start of the elections of the head of Gagauzia, the region with a population of about 120 thousand people, the Schor party nominated 36-year-old Evgeny Gutsul, a lawyer by education and the mother of two children, who had grown up and lived in the village of Etulia of the Vulcanesta district of Gagauzia.

Suddenly, for many in the first round, Gutsul scored 26.47% of the vote, 14,890 voters voted for her, which allowed her to get into the second round. She was supported by Russian singer Jasmine (Ilan Shor wife) and other Russian pop stars. Philip Kirkorov, Nikolai Baskov and Stas Mikhailov even removed the video clip, in which they sang the Gagauzia anthem in Russian and called for vote for Evgenia Hutsul.

In the second round, 27,374 voters voted for Gutsul (52.34%). As a result, she was ahead of the candidate, supported by the Party of Socialists, ex-president of Moldova, Igor Dodon.

Immediately after the victory in the election, the newly elected head of Gagauzia said that she wanted to be closer to Russia. Six months after taking office, Gutsul flew to Russia not by courier, but in the status of the legitimate head of the Moldovan region. In Moscow, it was accepted by the chairman of the Federation Council of Russia Valentina Matvienko. During this meeting, Bashkan Gagauzia complained that the rights of regions were oppressed in Moldova.

From Moscow, Evgeny Gutsul flew to Sochi, where she took part in the work of the so -called World Youth Festival and even went as part of the Moldova delegation on the march of participants.

In the same place, in Sochi, on March 6, 2024, the head of Gagauzia was adopted by President of Russia Putin. They discussed the “complex regional and geopolitical issues, in the epicenter of which our Gagauzia is located” (quote for telegram channel Evgenia Gutsul). She also told her readers that “she informed Vladimir Vladimirovich about the lawless actions of the authorities in Moldova, who takes revenge on us for our civil position and fidelity to national interests. Chisinau steps by step takes our powers, limits the budget, violates legal rights, provokes instability and destabilization in Gagauzia and throughout the country. ” But "the Russian leader promised to support Gagauzia and the Gagauz people in defending our legal rights, powers and positions in the international arena." The end of the quote.

By the time of the audience, Gutsul in Putin and Matvienko, the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Moldova intensified the investigation of the criminal case of illegal financing of the Schor party, initiated back in 2022. On April 24, 2024, it became known that the investigation was completed, and the case was referred to the court. Evgenia Gutsul and Svetlana Popan sat on a bench.

The first meeting took place on May 27, 2024. The case was considered slowly - time did not work for Evgenia Gutsul. Her generous election promises remained promises. Bashkan remained at large and continued to fulfill his duties. Only in April of this year, Gutsul was transferred under house arrest. Perhaps the trial would have been in a sluggish regime, but on September 28, parliamentary elections were scheduled in Moldova. And each court hearing in the case of Evgenia Gutsul and Svetlana Popan was accompanied by shares in the protest of supporters of the “Shor” party, although not allowed to the parliamentary elections, but rather noisy. Party protests create a nasty information background for the current President of Moldova Maya Sandu and her party “Action and Solidarity” (PAS) - this party still has the majority in the country's parliament.

In a word, it was better not to pull with the verdict.

Landromate and 10 tons of hashish

However, there is reason to believe that protest activity in Moldova on the eve of the elections will only increase. And this is not connected with the Gutsul case. And with the arrest in Greece of the Moldavian oligarch Vlad Plahotniuk.

Until 2019, Plakhotnyuk was the richest businessman of Moldova and the most influential politician of the country. He headed the Democratic Party, was elected a deputy of the parliament, where he even held the post of first vice speaker at one time. But in 2019, the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Moldova summoned Plahotnyuk for interrogation as a suspect in the criminal case of money laundering. Plakhotnyuk had already left Moldova by that time. As a result, the National Center for Combating Moldova Corruption put him on the international wanted list.

They detained Plakhotnyuk on July 22, 2025 in Greece. Now he is in the most severe Greek prison Coridallos.

Since the emergence of information about the arrest of Plakhotnyuk, the Providious press of Moldova began to present the arrest of the Moldavian fugitive as a crushing victory of the current president of Maya Sandu over corruption. Immediately there were stuffing that Plakhotnyuk is panicky to appear before the trial in Chisinau and expects that he is extradited to Russia.

These fakes were refuted by Plakhotnyuk himself: he wrote a statement of consent to a simplified extence procedure precisely in Moldova. It is understandable: in Russia, three criminal cases have been instituted against Plahotniuk. The consideration of one of them began in the Tver District Court of Moscow back in March this year. In this case, known both in Russia and the West, as the matter of the “Moldavian Landromate”, Plahotnyuk is accused in absentia of complicity of the leadership of the criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and the withdrawal of 220 billion rubles from Russia on linden documents (Article 193.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The next meeting is scheduled for August 28.

Meanwhile, another person involved in the same criminal case, also the Moldavian oligarch, the banker and also the former deputy of the Moldavian parliament of Vyacheslav Platon, the Presnensky court of Moscow last month, July 25, sentenced a strictly regime colony. Also in absentia. Plato himself is now in London. The British police at the Moldova's extradition request detained Plato on March 14 this year.

In Moldova, two criminal cases were instituted against Vyacheslav Plato. One of them concerns a possible withdrawal of 23.4 million dollars from Moldindconbank under the guise of loans for Ilan Shor, the other - illegal opening of an account with a bank of the Supreme Court of Moldova, where Plato transferred 300 thousand euros received by criminal means. According to the prosecution, this was done without the knowledge of the judge in order to discredit it.

On July 24, the Royal Court of Westminster Abbey released Plato on bail of 330 thousand pounds. The request for his extradition to Moldova will be considered in November.

But back to Plakhotnyuk and claims to it of law enforcement agencies in Russia. Another criminal case against him was instituted in 2019, and it was connected with drug smuggling.

In June 2019, a ship under the Moldavian flag with a Ukrainian crew was detained in the Spanish water area of ​​the Mediterranean Sea, 10 tons of hashs were discovered on board. The crew did not unlock and said that part of this party was heading to Russia. Well, also the sailors called the customer and the organizer of the smuggling - Vlad Plahotnyuk.

Based on the information received from the Spanish colleagues and the own operational developments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia held a whole series of arrests already in Russia.

On June 26, 2019, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia spread an official press release, which said :

“As a result of investigative actions and operational-search measures carried out from August 2012 to June 2019, employees of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the Main Directorate for Control of Drugs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, together with foreign colleagues from the republics of Moldova, Belarus and the Kingdom of Spain, under the Pyneanian Supreme Spanish, were established and brought to criminal liability more 60 participants in the International drugsindical. Over 1 ton of hash of hash was seized from illegal turnover. According to available information, no later than 2012 Vladimir Plahotnyuk became one of the leaders of the criminal transnational drug -syndicate and patronized its participants. ”

On August 9, 2019, Plakhotnyuk was charged with this criminal case.

Well, in the third criminal case, Vlad Plakhotnyuk was put on the international wanted list on November 29, 2017 - in connection with suspicion of involvement in the organization of attempt on the murder of the Moldavian politician Renato Usataya. The mustachioed, the leader of our party, back in 2010, began to publicly say that Plahotnyuk is one organizers and patrons of the Moldavian Landromate.

In Russia, in three criminal cases, Plahotnyuk threatens up to life. Therefore, he has no reason to agree to extradition to Russia.

In Moldova, he still has tens of thousands of supporters, and not only among ordinary citizens, but also among influential people of the country. Which he paid bribes for years and who are afraid that in Chisinau he can begin to speak.

The voter is tired of squirrels

In early August, Plakhotnyuk handed over to lawyers an appeal to Moldova citizens, in which he called for unit against the "yellow sect".

“You know no worse than me what the Republic of Moldova has turned into in recent years under PAS. In the economy - a complete collapse, just a disaster! Prices and tariffs for gas, electricity and oil products increased significantly. The agricultural producers are abandoned to the mercy of fate in the midst of drought and crisis. The church was undergoing humiliation and split. The society is embittered according to ethnic and ideological criteria. Businessmen sell assets and leave the country. The state employees are kept in fear. Schools and universities are closed. People leave Moldova hundreds and thousands every week, ”wrote Vlad Plahotnyuk from the Greek prison Coridallos. And he summed up: “I will return home and violate the plans of those who are in power today in order to free Moldova from their hands! <...> If they give them four more years, from the Republic of Moldova there will be no economy, nor the population, no future, nor stone on stone. ”

Despite the fact that Plakhotnyuk is in a prison cell, he has enough financial resources in offshore accounts and devoted people who are able to organize a campaign in Moldova and in diasporas with an appeal to vote for any batch, except for the ruling “action and solidarity” (PAS).

There are about three million voters in Moldova. For example, in October 2024, in the election of the President of the country, the turnout amounted to 52%, it is a little more than 1.5 million Moldavians. Of which more than 240 thousand voted in areas open abroad (including about 10 thousand voters voted in two areas opened in Russia). The Plahotnyuk team may well reach most of the voters. Both in Moldova itself and beyond.

For Sandu office, the only way to minimize the consequences of the campaign “for anyone except PAS” is to dry the turnout. To bring the situation to such a point when most voters will adopt the principle of “plague on your home” and will not go to the polls.

Apparently, it was in order to achieve this goal that the sentencing against Bashkan Gagauzia Evgenia Hutsul was forced: so that the Moldovans feel tired of political squabbles and scandals. At least until the end of September.

And it seems that the calculation is justified. Near Chisinau Prison No. 13, which now contains the Gutsul and the Plah, who are already protesting less than a dozen people.