Maria Zakharova reacted sharply after authorities summoned ambassador-designate Oleg Ozerov. The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia said she did not understand why officials placed water from the Dniester River on the table in front of the diplomat.
Maria Zakharova suggested that authorities in the Republic of Moldova might have intended to request assistance from Kremlin in analyzing the samples in Moscow. At the same time, she accused Chisinau of failing to present laboratory test results alongside the “murky liquid.”
Maria Zakharova said, “In the absence of real capacity to carry out analyses, they may have wanted our ambassador to convey a request to Moscow so we could help determine what is in that water. I will not judge who came up with this idea. I do not believe the Moldovan Foreign Ministry proposed it.”
Authorities summoned Oleg Ozerov to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Moldova, where they handed him a note of protest after Russian forces bombed the hydropower plant in Novodnistrovsk. According to authorities in Chisinau, the attack caused fuel to spill into the Dniester River and left several northern localities without running water.