Moldova has deported the local bureau chief of Russia’s state-run Sputnik news agency, Russian media reported Wednesday.
“I was issued a 10-year ban on entering Moldova,” Vitaly Denisov, head of Sputnik Moldova, told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Denisov said Moldovan migration officers had informed him that he posed a threat to national security and placed him on the first flight home.
“They didn’t let me pack my things, grab my pets and so on,” he said.
Both Sputnik and RIA Novosti operate under the state media group Rossiya Segodnya.
Earlier this year, Moldovan President Maia Sandu accused Russia of plotting to violently overthrow the country’s pro-European leadership with the help of saboteurs disguised as anti-government protesters.
A state of emergency has been in place in Moldova ever since the Kremlin ordered tanks across the border into Ukraine.
Along with Ukraine, Moldova was offered EU candidate status in July last year.
