Chisinau, Moldova— Moldova's president described a plot by Moscow on Monday to destabilize her country's government using foreign saboteurs, place Moldova "at the disposal of Russia," and thwart its future aspirations to join the European Union.

The briefing by President Maia Sandu comes one week after the president of neighboring Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed that his nation had learned of Russian secret services' plans to destroy Moldova. These claims were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.

"The plan for the next period involves actions with the involvement of diversionists with military training, disguised in civilian clothes, who will undertake violent actions, attack some state buildings, and even take hostages," Sandu said at a briefing for reporters.

Moldova, a former Soviet republic with a population of about 2.6 million, has worked to forge closer ties with its Western allies ever since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago. It received EU candidate status in June of last year, the same month that Ukraine did.

"To overthrow the constitutional order, to change the legitimate power from (Moldova's capital) Chisinau to an illegitimate one," according to Sandu, is the goal of the alleged Russian plot. "This would put our country at the disposal of Russia, in order to stop the European integration process," she added.

"The Kremlin's attempts to bring violence to our country will not succeed," she vowed defiantly. The claims made by Sandu received no immediate response from Russian officials.

In "several cases of organized criminal elements and stopped attempts at violence," according to Sandu, Moldovan police and its Intelligence and Security Service, or SIS, intervened between October and December.

Moldova, a non-NATO member, has experienced numerous issues over the past year. These include a severe energy crisis brought on by Moscow's sharp reduction in gas supplies, soaring inflation, and a number of recent incidents involving missiles that have flown over its skies and debris that has been discovered on its soil.

Authorities in Moldova have confirmed that on Friday, another missile from the conflict in Ukraine entered their airspace.

Last April, tensions in Moldova also increased as a result of a string of explosions in Transnistria, a separatist region of Moldova supported by Russia and home to 1,500 Russian soldiers. These explosions sparked worries that Transnistria might become involved in Russia's conflict in Ukraine. With a population of 470,000, Transnistria has been ruled by separatist authorities since a civil war broke out there in 1992.

Without elaborating, Sandu asserted that Russia intends to use Moldova in its conflict with Ukraine and that intelligence services' information contained what she described as instructions on the entry requirements for people from Russia, Belarus, Serbia, and Montenegro.

“I assure you that the state institutions are working to prevent these challenges and keep the situation under control,” Sandu said.

She stated that draft laws must be approved by the parliament of Moldova in order to provide the prosecutor's office and the country's intelligence and security service with "the necessary tools to combat the risks to the country's security more effectively."

After Zelenskyy first made the security information public last week in Brussels, Costin Ciobanu, a political scientist at Royal Holloway University of London, said there probably "was a huge pressure" on Moldovan authorities to provide more information to the public.

According to him, President Sandu's announcement today "legitimizes the narrative that Moldova needs to focus on its security." They are likely now more certain of Russian attempts of this nature based on the evidence they have received.

In the same way that Western officials exposed the Kremlin's war plans prior to its invasion of Ukraine, Sandu's decision to go public could also be an effort to thwart "Russia's attempts to destabilize Moldova."

The president went on to mention two exiled Moldovan oligarchs, Ilan Shor and Vladimir Plahotniuc, saying that the plan would "rely on several internal forces, but especially on criminal groups." The US and UK imposed sanctions on both men last year.

In the midst of Moldova's energy crisis last fall, Shor's populist, pro-Russia Shor Party spearheaded a series of large-scale anti-government demonstrations.

Following the unexpected resignation of Natalia Gavrilita, the prime minister of Moldova, on Friday, the president held a press conference on Monday. The same day, Sandu chose pro-Western economist Dorin Recean to succeed Gavrilita as her defense and security adviser.

Vedant Patel, the deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told reporters in Washington on Friday after Moldovan authorities confirmed the missile incident that "Russia has for years supported influence and destabilization campaigns in Moldova, which frequently involve weaponizing corruption to further its goals."