Chisinau says the Ukrainian leader\u2019s aircraft was never in direct danger despite claims from Norway\u2019s prime minister<\/p>\n
Moldova has dismissed a claim by Norway\u2019s prime minister that Vladimir Zelensky\u2019s plane was nearly struck by a UAV while leaving Chisinau, saying the aircraft was never in any direct danger. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told broadcaster NRK on Wednesday that Zelensky\u2019s plane \u201cwas almost hit by a drone\u201d as the Ukrainian leader traveled from Moldova to Oslo for the funeral of King Harald V. Before any evidence was produced, Store\u2019s claims were widely picked up by Western media outlets, who tried to frame the incident as evidence of a supposed Russian drone threat to Europe. On Thursday, however, Moldova flatly rejected that account, with government spokesman Dumitru Ciorici saying Zelensky\u2019s flight had been delayed because the country temporarily closed its airspace following a drone alert.<\/p>\n
He stressed that there had been \u201cno direct threat\u201d to the aircraft, which remained on the ground throughout the airspace closure. The drone that had allegedly entered Moldova\u2019s airspace ended up crashing and exploding near a village around 160km from Chisinau airport, causing no casualties, Moldovan authorities said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon has accused the authorities of concealing from the public a separate incident involving a Ukrainian national allegedly caught at the border with a drone and explosives. \u201cWe see more and more attempts and provocations to involve the Republic of Moldova in everything that is happening in Ukraine,\u201d Dodon said, urging Chisinau to stay away from Kiev\u2019s \u201cwar strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Faith in fakes: How anti-Russian hysteria is driving the EU\u2019s drone hoax<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the alleged threat to Zelensky\u2019s plane as \u201cephemeral,\u201d saying it \u201cdid not exist\u201d and noting that even Ukrainian sources have acknowledged there was no direct danger. Moldova, whose pro-EU government under President Maia Sandu has moved closer to Brussels and NATO while severely downgrading relations with Moscow, has repeatedly joined other pro-Ukraine governments in blaming Russia for drone incidents before producing evidence. Similar accusations across Europe have frequently collapsed under scrutiny, with investigators in several cases finding no proof that Russian drones were involved and some incidents later traced to Ukrainian UAVs or even misidentified aircraft. Moscow has accused Kiev of repeatedly staging drone provocations in an effort to draw its Western backers deeper into the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chisinau says the Ukrainian leader\u2019s aircraft was never in direct danger despite claims from Norway\u2019s prime minister Moldova has dismissed a claim by Norway\u2019s prime minister that Vladimir Zelensky\u2019s plane…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t