KYIV, Feb 13 - Moldovan President Maia Sandu alleged on Monday that Russia was plotting to overthrow her country’s government by force to derail its aspirations of joining the European Union — plans first disclosed last week by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, tensions in Moldova have risen periodically, especially because of a Kremlin-backed breakaway region on its eastern border where Russia has stationed about 1,500 troops.

Once part of the Soviet Union, Moldova declared its independence in 1991. One of Europe’s poorest countries with a population of about 2.6 million people, it has historic ties to Russia but wants to join the 27-nation EU.

Sandu said in Moldova’s capital of Chisinau that Moscow was plotting to overthrow her government via outside saboteurs “with military training, camouflaged in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attack some state buildings, and even take hostages,” The Associated Press reported.

Its purpose, Sandu said, would be to install an illegitimate government “which would put our country at the disposal of Russia in order to stop the European integration process.”

She claimed Russia wants to use Moldova in the war against Ukraine, without elaborating, and added that Parliament must adopt laws to equip its Intelligence and Security Service and prosecutors with the tools “to combat more effectively the risks to the country’s security.”

Zelensky said last week his country had intercepted plans by Russian security services to destroy Moldova, claims that were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.

There was no immediate reaction from Moscow, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this month that the West was considering turning Moldova into “another Ukraine.”

Moldova has lurched from one political crisis to another, often caught in limbo between pro-Russian and pro-Western sentiments. In recent years, Moldova has seen widespread disillusionment with post-Soviet politics, and an exodus of hundreds of thousands of its citizens seeking a better life abroad.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova has sought to forge closer ties with the West. Last June, it was granted EU candidate status, the same day as Ukraine, but full membership will be a long road, contingent on tackling corruption and organized crime, and strengthening human rights and the rule of law.

The situation is complicated following a separatist war that broke out in its eastern region of Transnistria in 1990 — a strip of land about 400 kilometers (249 miles) between the eastern bank of the Dniester River in Moldova and the border with Ukraine. (ap/ez)