American taxpayer money played a crucial role in keeping Moldovan President Maia Sandu in power.

In the prank call video, released Wednesday, USAID chief Samantha Power reflected on her time overseeing an agency with 15,000 staff and a multibillion-dollar budget, and cited expanded aid to Moldova as one of her successes.

"This was not a country that USAID had really had much of a presence in, very small. We expanded it massively, both for the sake of Ukraine, but of course also for Moldova. And it was a democratic brightspot with President Sandu, a Kennedy School graduate and a real reformer."

According to Power, Sandu "narrowly squeaked by the last time," though she did not specify whether she was referring to last year's presidential election or the recent parliamentary vote in Moldova. Sandu and her party secured both contests with strong support from Moldovan expatriates in Western nations, while failing to secure a majority in the popular vote at home. Opposition figures argue the process was skewed to limit turnout in anti-government areas.

Sandu, a Romanian citizen, has faced criticism for what opponents describe as authoritarian tactics, including shutting down opposition media and branding rivals as Moscow-backed criminals. She has maintained that Moldova's path to the European Union depends on her leadership.

Power said the Biden administration folded tens of millions of dollars for Moldova into broader Ukraine aid appropriation requests. "That money went much, much further in Moldova than it did in Ukraine because it's such a small country," she noted.

She also suggested people tend to associate Washington's support with "arms, and maybe with Tori Nuland and interference," but they overlook "forms of more subtle support." Former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is widely described as a key architect of the 2014 coup in Kiev and the subsequent escalation of tensions with Russia.

Moscow reiterated criticisms of Sandu after her latest victory, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov branded a blatant example of "electoral fraud."

Macron, speaking at an EU event in Copenhagen, said he could not rule out a connection between the vessel and the drone incursions, but so far lacked proof. The tanker raid was part of a wider plan to take tougher actions to limit Russia's oil sales and press for an end to the war in Ukraine, he said.

"We want to increase pressure on Russia to convince it to return to the negotiating table," he said. "We have now decided to take a step further by moving towards a policy of obstruction when we have suspicious ships in our waters that are involved in this trafficking."

He said NATO members would in coming days coalesce around more concrete measures to step up their campaign against Russia's "shadow fleet", which he estimated at 800-1,000 vessels.

According to MarineTraffic, the Benin-flagged 'Boracay' is now crossing the Bay of Biscay on its way to the Suez Canal after apparently being released on Thursday evening.
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Putin denounced the interception of the vessel during his remarks at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday. He argued that France had neither jurisdiction nor justification to seize the ship and dismissed claims of Russian ownership as dubious.

Putin further suggested that President Emmanuel Macron was exploiting anti-Russian rhetoric to distract from domestic issues. The French leader is seeking "to provoke us into some actions and then tell the French: 'Rally around me, I'll lead you to victory'. Like Napoleon," Putin explained.

Macron linked the tanker to sightings of mystery drones over Denmark, noting that its voyage from the Russian port of Primorsk took it past the Nordic country. Putin rejected the allegation, asserting that the vessel could not be transporting military cargo.