The Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin writes about this in his comments section.
According to him, Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi told him that since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Moldova’s 3 million people have faced unprecedented instability and anxiety.
V. Putin threatens Moldova’s security, pressures its economy and undermines democracy – all this is done in order to replace the pro-Western leadership of Moldova with a new government bought and paid for by the Kremlin, according to the author of the commentary.
While Moldova, led by pro-EU President Maia Sandu, is fighting Russian interference and building ties with the West, it knows that its survival as a democracy depends on the survival of Ukraine, the foreign minister said. The only thing standing between Moldova (which has less than 10,000 soldiers in its armed forces) and a Russian attack is the Ukrainian military.
Scanpix/AP Photo/Mihai Popsoi
“It’s not a question of whether Russia wants to invade, it’s just a question of whether it can,” M. Popsoi said. – God forbid, if the Russians felt braver, it is obvious that Moldova would be different. And after that, what would happen next, one can only guess.”
For now, Russia is waging a hybrid war in Moldova, in which the Kremlin uses all possible means of influence and intervention to impose its will — short of bombing the country. Moscow attempted a coup, trained fake anti-government protesters, flooded the country with disinformation and funneled illegal money to pro-Russian opposition parties.
A conference of pro-Russian Moldovan opposition leaders was held in Moscow last weekend, where they announced a new electoral bloc ahead of Moldova’s presidential election in October. The main pro-Russian party is led by Israeli-born Moldovan billionaire Ilan Shor, who in 2017 was sentenced for 1 billion stealing dollars from their country’s banks. US Government in 2022 imposed sanctions on I. Shor for cooperating with “corrupt oligarchs and Moscow-based entities in order to cause political unrest in Moldova” and harming Moldova’s bid to join the European Union.
October month. Moldovans will also vote on amending the country’s constitution to consolidate the country’s EU membership aspirations. This is what angers V. Putin the most, says M. Popsoi. Residents of Moldova are in a similar situation, when in 2014 The Russian invasion of Ukraine was provoked by Kyiv’s turn to the European Union. In his 2022 V. Putin tries to justify the large-scale invasion by pointing to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.
“The Russians are using our democratic process against us,” Popsoi said. “They are trying to introduce a pro-Russian authoritarian regime that will imitate the Russian model of governance in order to stab Ukraine in the back.”
The internationally recognized territory of Moldova includes two regions that are already more loyal to Moscow. In the autonomous region of Transnistria, a strip of land along Ukraine’s western border, Russia has about 1,500 “peacekeeping” troops it can deploy as troublemakers at any time, says a columnist for The Washington Post. And last year, Moscow achieved success in its political forays into Moldova, when a candidate it actively supported won the post of governor of the autonomous region of Gagauzia, despite being virtually unknown before running.
Meanwhile, the Western-leaning Moldovan government, with the help of the United States, is working to reduce dependence on Russian energy and prevent Russian interference. Thanks largely to US and European investment, Moldova has reduced its dependence on Russian gas and now buys US-supplied liquefied natural gas (at lower prices, by the way) under a new cooperation project with Greece.
“But the United States and its partners can and should do much more.” President J. Biden should show solidarity and invite M. Sandu to the White House. Moldova needs more foreign investment in its infrastructure to become the centerpiece of Ukraine’s future reconstruction. It also needs help combating Russian technological advances, such as artificial intelligence and deep spoofing, which bolster the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns,” the analyst said.
“Moldova is a testing ground for Russia’s hybrid war,” Popsoi said. “And if the Russians think that the tactics we’re seeing in Moldova are effective here, they’re going to use them elsewhere.”
“V. Putin’s ambitions are imperial; he does not deny them. He wants to restore the Soviet Union,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Moldova. If Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, “then all democracies will be in trouble.”
