VIDEO // Speaker welcomes return home of SIS officers and thanks U.S. and European partners for involvement

Speaker Igor Grosu provided details ahead of today's parliament session about the international exchange of persons as a result of which two officers of the Intelligence and Security Service (SIS) returned to the Republic of Moldova. The official thanked external partners for their involvement and commented on the profile of the individuals concerned in the discreet process.



Igor Grosu welcomed the return to Chișinău of the two Moldovan citizens, emphasizing the importance of this moment for their families.


"First of all, I want to congratulate the families of these officers, because their hope has come true and their children, their sons, have made it home. Now we should leave them alone for a bit so they can recover, because they need that," the Speaker said.


The Speaker stressed the important contribution of the intelligence services and international partners in carrying out this operation.


"We thank the SIS, we thank our American partners, the U.S. Administration, who made a very substantial contribution. We thank our Romanian colleagues, who likewise had a very important contribution, our Polish colleagues, and all those who, in a discreet and very careful manner, carried out this exchange," Grosu said.


Igor Grosu also sent a message to politicians who tried to intervene in or associate themselves with this sensitive topic, warning about the risks of image-building at the expense of human lives.


"I even thank the politicians, some of them, who started to rush in and contribute as well. Thanks for hearing the call in time, because there is no room here for capitalizing, for building an image; we are talking about human lives," he underlined.


Asked to comment on the release of Alexandru Balan within this exchange, the official played down the impact he could still have on national security, calling him a "traitor".


"I say let us not exaggerate. This person, who will live from now on with the label of traitor, has long been out of the system, so let us not overestimate his capacities to possess [information]. What he did has long since been defused. He has been out of the system for a long time and now, obviously, our own intelligence structure has taken all measures to fully minimize his impact or access," Igor Grosu assessed.


Asked about the specific activity of the two officers in the Russian Federation, Igor Grosu noted that these details are beyond his remit. "I don't know; do you really think I am the head of the SIS? Such questions are beyond me," the Speaker concluded, stressing that beyond technical details, the most important fact remains the return of the young Moldovans home.

On 28 April 2026, a multilateral prisoner exchange took place at the Pererov–Beloveja border crossing located on the frontier between Belarus and Poland. This operation brought together the efforts of Poland and the Republic of Moldova alongside the Russian Federation and Belarus, using a five-for-five exchange formula for a total of 10 people. As a result of this effort, the Republic of Moldova succeeded in securing the return of two intelligence officers who had been deprived of their liberty by Russia's Federal Security Service in Moscow since the spring of 2025. Although the Russian authorities had previously claimed that the two were carrying out missions against Russia's security, the institutions in Chișinău firmly rejected these accusations, describing them as speculative and unfounded actions.

In order to ensure the return of the two officers, the Republic of Moldova complied with Moscow's request to hand over Nina Popova and Alexandru Balan, the former Deputy Head of the Intelligence and Security Service. Balan's legal trajectory was marked by his arrest in Romania in the autumn of 2025 on charges of treason in favor of the intelligence services of Belarus, followed by a conviction in the Republic of Moldova to one year and six months in prison. After he was extradited from Romania on 24 April, President Maia Sandu signed the decree pardoning him on the very day of the international exchange, to allow his departure to Belarus. Once he arrived at his destination, the former official was presented by the Belarusian media as an intelligence agent who had fulfilled his duty to the homeland, being welcomed with honors and gifts from leader Alexander Lukashenko.