A court in Moldova today convicted three people of participating in training for subversive activities, held in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in 2024 as part of Russia's efforts to undermine Moldova's pro-European orientation.
Aliona Gotko was sentenced to four years and one month in prison, Lyudmila Kostenko to four years, and Vladimir Kharchevnikov to five years and four months, and the sentences can be appealed within 15 days, BIRN reports on its Balkan Insight portal.
None of the defendants attended the verdict and arrest warrants have been issued for them.
In September 2024, Moldova's intelligence service received information that Russian instructors were training Moldovan citizens in camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, with the aim of creating chaos during the presidential elections that year, when a referendum was held on introducing the aspiration for membership in the European Union into the Constitution, which Russia opposes.
A month later, Moldovan police arrested several hundred people, in raids linked to training in the Balkans, but also in Russia.
Gotko, Kostenko and Kharchevnikov pleaded not guilty in court to charges of planning unrest, but admitted that they were in a camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was located in the village of Glamočani, near Banja Luka.
The trainees were brought to the camp from Serbia, but were not given full details before their arrival. Those who testified said they were trained to operate drones, which were also equipped with mechanisms to throw smoke bombs or stun grenades.
According to these testimonies, the instructor in charge of the drones was Russian and the training participants called him "Viktor", but his identity has not yet been revealed.
Despite evidence and admissions, politicians from Republika Srpska, including the leader of the ruling coalition, Milorad Dodik, deny the existence of the camps, which is also the position of the Russian Embassy in Sarajevo.
Serbian police arrested two people in September 2025 on suspicion of training Moldovan and Romanian citizens in subversive tactics, with the intention of causing unrest during Moldova's parliamentary elections that month. It was also reported at the time that more than 150 Moldovan and Romanian citizens were being trained at a holiday camp in western Serbia.
Moldovan authorities at the same time carried out a series of raids against a network believed to be responsible for training people in Serbia to sabotage Moldova's parliamentary elections, under the supervision of Russian agents.
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