OREANDA-NEWS   Half of Moldovans do not consider Russia a threat to the country and oppose joining NATO, according to a poll published on Friday by the SBS-AXA Center for Sociological Research commissioned by the Watch.Dog public organization close to the authorities of the republic.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that since the beginning of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, Chisinau has been in solidarity with Kiev, suspending dialogue with Russia.

Last autumn, Western countries imposed tough anti-Russian sanctions. Moldova has not officially joined the full package of sanctions, but the country's president, Maya Sandu, previously stressed that Chisinau supports Western sanctions in the financial and banking sector. "We have an interesting picture: 47.7% of respondents stated that they do not consider Russia a threat to Moldova (42.3% hold a different opinion). But to the question whether you will fight in the event of a possible Russian attack, 45.8% of respondents gave a negative answer. Only 23.6% of respondents affirmatively said they were ready to take up arms in the event of a Russian attack, and 21.7% could not answer confidently what they would do," said Valery Pasha, head of Watch.Dog, presenting the results of the survey.