US sanctions Russian intelligence-linked group over efforts to destabilize pro-Western Moldova

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and STEPHEN McGRATH
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has imposed sanctions on a group of people linked to Russian intelligence who it says has helped the Kremlin destabilize Moldova’s democratically elected government through protests in the Moldovan capital earlier this year. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated seven members of a group linked to a sanctioned Moldovan oligarch, Ilan Shor. He’s currently in exile in Israel, from where he leads Moldova’s pro-Russia Shor Party. The Shor Party supports a group calling itself Movement for the People, which organized the anti-government protests in Moldova’s capital earlier this year.