Moldova’s relations with Russia will reach a new level in 2019, President Igor Dodon said on Wednesday after his talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"At today’s meeting with the Russian president [we] shared our views on the Moldovan-Russian economic ties, cooperation in trade and in the humanitarian field. Summing up the results of two years of cooperation between the heads of state, we pointed out that by now the conditions have been created to take the Moldovan-Russian relations to a qualitatively new level," Dodon wrote on his Facebook page.
Dodon is convinced that Moldova’s parliamentary election scheduled for February 24 will bring about a government that will prioritize the renewal of "relations with Russian Federation as mutually beneficial cooperation and strategic partnership."
In this context, Moldova’s president underlined the importance of transparent and democratic elections. "I have asked leading international agencies — including the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe], the Council of Europe and the CIS [the Commonwealth of Independent States] — to send more observers, which will help hold a free and fair parliamentary election in Moldova in compliance with international standards," Dodon said.