The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that it had summoned the ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to Moscow and declared an employee of the Moldovan embassy persona non grata, Reuters reports.

The ministry reacted to, according to him, the “groundless” recognition of an employee of the Russian embassy in the Republic of Moldova as persona non grata on March 19.

On March 11, the Republic of Moldova announced that it had summoned the Russian ambassador to protest against the creation of several polling stations in the Russian presidential election in the Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria, in the context of Chisinau, which regularly accuses Moscow of attempts to destabilize, initially authorized a single polling station in the headquarters of the Russian diplomatic mission in the capital of Moldova, reports AFP.

Then Moldova expelled a Russian diplomat because of the opening of polling stations. Previous government statements qualified Russia’s approach as disrespecting Moldova’s sovereignty.

President Maia Sandu has called Russia the biggest threat to the sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova and called for a referendum to be held later this year to get a public mandate for its bid to join the EU. Last week, the Constitutional Court allowed voting to be held simultaneously with the presidential election.

The Republic of Moldova faces two threats to its stability: from the separatist enclave of Transnistria in the east and the Gagauzia region in the south, whose leader has close ties to Shor.

Both regions have sought support from Russia in recent weeks.