From March 14, the flights of the low-cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air to and from the airport of Chisinau – the capital of Moldova – will be suspended, for security reasons, it and the Moldovan civil aviation service announced, against the background of the escalation of tensions with Moscow and the war in Ukraine.

The Moldovan public authority said yesterday that it had been informed by the Hungarian airline of its decision by email, expressing its regret for it. Moldovan authorities are doing everything to guarantee safety in its airspace, he added.

For its part, Wizz Air announced that “due to recent developments and due to the increased, although not immediate, danger in the airspace” of Moldova, it took “the difficult but responsible decision to suspend all its flights to Chisinau from March 14”.

Fears that Moldova, with a population of 2.6 million, could be dragged into war are intensifying. Russian troops are deployed in Transnistria, a region that has unilaterally declared its independence. Last week, Moscow alleged that Ukraine was planning to attack its forces there.

Wizz Air operates flights to various destinations in central and south-eastern Europe. After suspending its routes to Chisinau, it plans to offer more flights to and from the Romanian city of Iasi, near the Moldovan border, according to media reports.

Chisinau airport is among the closest for Ukrainians, as passenger flights to their country have been suspended since the Russian military invaded a year ago on February 24, 2022.

A few days ago, the pro-European government of Moldova denounced efforts to “destabilize” it by Moscow, while since the outbreak of the war it has expressed fears that it will become the “next target” of the Russian army.

It had closed its airspace since the early hours of the invasion of Ukraine, before flights resumed on March 21, 2022. However, Russian missiles have passed over its territory, notably in October 2022 and January.

Missile debris has been repeatedly found on Moldovan territory.

Wizz Air is the first airline to announce that it has taken such a decision. The company, remarkably, operated about a third of its flights to and from Chisinau.

However, the Romanian national carrier Tarom, Air Moldova and Turkish Airlines continue to operate flights serving the Moldovan capital.