Bottom Line
- One of the poorest countries in Europe faces a war next door and destabilizing attempts from within through disinformation and propaganda attacks. Moldova, thirty-two years after independence, continues to struggle to secure its place on the European and world map as a democracy.
- Moldovan leaders, with information and support from Ukrainian and Western partners, successfully thwarted attempts by Russia to stage a coup against Moldova's pro-Western government. Despite the continued external security challenges, economic and energy shortages, the Moldovan elite, and the society at large are set to press ahead with the implementation of reforms required to advance on the road to EU membership.
- Continued political and financial support from the West remains crucial to help Moldova maintain its pro-Western foreign policy orientation and join the Western club of states while staying out of Russia’s sphere of influence.
“The Kremlin is thinking about ways to strangle Moldova.” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in his speech during the
Munich Security Conference on February 17, 2023 to convince Ukraine’s Western partners to speed up the delivery of weapons to Ukraine before the war escalates to neighboring countries.
It was Zelensky’s second warning on Moldova in a week: On February 9, when meeting the EU’s leaders in Brussels, Zelensky said that Ukraine has “
intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova.” Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said in a recent interview that Moldova
could meet the same fate as Ukraine.
With all these developments, the question many in Moldova and beyond ask is: Will Russian President Vladimir Putin decide that Moldova is the next country he will invade? The playbook that Putin is using in Moldova—steering social unrest, weaponizing energy, fueling disinformation and propaganda campaigns against the Moldovan leadership, and creating reports that Ukraine might attack Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Moldova but currently controlled by pro-Russian separatists—has the goal of destabilizing Moldova from within and creating another hot spot around Ukraine’s southern border. By destabilizing the country, Moscow aims to institute a friendly, pro-Russia government in Moldova and thwart the current leadership’s efforts to bring Moldova into the EU. By creating turmoil, Moscow also aims to achieve a tactical gain in the war with Ukraine by getting access to the airport in Moldova’s capital city of Chisinau, which would then allow Russia
to open another front and use its military resources from Transnistria in its war against Ukraine.
Recent changes within Moldova’s government are a sign that leaders are concerned with Moscow’s next moves toward Chisinau. Natalia Gavriliţa
stepped down as prime minister on February 10, and Dorin Recean, with a reshuffled government, was voted as the new prime minister by Moldova’s Parliament. Maia Sandu, Moldova’s president, announced that the new government’s role was to strengthen the country’s security and economy.
The economic challenges Moldova is facing are not few. The country remains among the
poorest in Europe and is most affected by the war in neighboring Ukraine. The energy infrastructure in Ukraine and Moldova is interlinked, so when Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy grid, Moldovans experienced blackouts. In 2022, Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned natural gas supplier, cut the gas supply to
Moldova by 60 percent, which increased the price of natural gas in Moldova sevenfold and quadrupled the price of electricity. The inflation rate increased by
30 percent, and with energy bills accounting for more than 70 percent of household incomes, Moldovans’ grievances and frustrations are being exploited by well-positioned pro-Russia political groups. The Shor pro-Russia party, whose
founder, Ilan Shor was convicted of fraud in Moldova over the theft of $1 billion from three Moldovan banks, is staging protests in Chisinau
by paying protesters and busing them from across the country to delegitimize the pro-EU government’s anti-corruption reforms.
Sandu has
accused Russia of planning to use foreign “saboteurs” to organize a coup in Moldova and destabilize the country from within. Russia violates Moldova’s airspace, firing
missiles over the border. The most recent incident happened in February 2023, and the last one was in October 2022.
Since Zelensky warned of Russia’s coup plans in Moldova, the country’s airspace has been
closed several times. Fifty-seven nationals, including a group of football fans from Serbia and several boxers from Montenegro, were
banned from entering Moldova out of fear that they would participate in subversive, violent activities to destabilize the government. In her
recent visit to Bucharest, Sandu declared that Russia’s plan to shatter Moldova’s current pro-EU government and
“establish a puppet government servile to the interests of the Kremlin” did not go through.
President Sandu, in her recent speech in the plenary session of the Moldovan Parliament, declared that “
As long as I am president, Moldova will stand upright,” meaning that she, her government, and state institutions will ensure that Russia’s attempts to destabilize the situation in Moldova will not succeed.
