Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
Thursday marked the 31-year anniversary of the start of the conflict between Moldova and the unrecognized, Russian-aligned breakaway state of Transnistria – a campaign that Moldovan-born journalist Paula Erizanu called “one of Russia’s first attempts to keep a former colony under its influence.”
Today, the long arm of the Kremlin is being accused of working through proxies to bring all of Moldova back into its sphere – an effort consistent with the playbook it has used elsewhere in the region.
Last June, Moldova was granted candidate status to enter the European Union as it worked to achieve energy independence from Russia. But in early February, Natalia Gavrilita stepped down as Moldova’s prime minister after just 18 months in office, citing “so many crises caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine.” Not long after, demonstrations began against her fellow pro-Western President Maia Sandu in the capital of Chisinau, supported by pro-Russian parties playing on the economic pain being disproportionately heaped on rural and senior Moldovans.
Ms. Sandu has since accused Vladimir Putin’s government of deploying false actors to stoke this unrest in an effort to spark a coup in the former Soviet republic; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested the same. Mr. Putin, for his part, has baselessly claimed that Kyiv is seeking to take pro-Russian Moldovan territory.
This situation is reminiscent of what happened in 2014, when pro-Russian “little green men” entered Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea in Ukraine, occupied public buildings and annexed the territory by claiming that a separatist movement was under way.
However, few are betting that the same course of events will take hold in Moldova. For one thing, Russian forces are busy suffering humiliating losses in eastern Ukraine. Secondly, the protests appear to be small and poorly organized, with heaps of Moldovans on social media heaping scorn on the troublemakers. And third, there are only 1,500 Russian soldiers in the unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria, most of them are local citizens.
In the 101-seat legislature, the pro-western Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) commands a 63-seat majority and doesn’t have to call an election until 2025. And recent public opinion polls suggest that support for Russia in Moldova is slowly declining.
However, the government will have to tread carefully to keep things stable. The geopolitical situation, including the war in neighbouring Ukraine, has caused consumer prices to surge by around 30 per cent year-over-year in December – among the highest numbers in Europe. With energy bills climbing, people are finding it tough to survive on the average monthly salary of around $700. The cost of energy skyrocketed – by some estimates, as high as 600 per cent – after Moldova realigned its sources of supply toward Europe and away from Russia and Transnistria.
Any escalation in the war could also easily send more asylum-seekers over the Moldova-Ukraine border. That’s a significant burden for a country of just 2.6 million people that is already hosting about 80,000 Ukrainians, though it should be said that in my many visits to Chisinau in recent months, I’ve noticed the capital has become a refuge for savvy, young tech workers from places such as Belarus and Ukraine – a boon for any country.
“What you’ve got is a government that came in with high ratings, but because of the economic difficulties in the past 18 months, the ratings have really fallen,” said William Hill, an American who is the former ambassador for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Moldova, in an interview. “They’ve had the disadvantage of being in power during troubled times.”
Now, more than ever, Moldova needs the support of western partners as it seeks to stay the course. That should include continuing to provide economic support – for example, in the area of energy subsidies and diversifying sources of supply – as well as funding for upgrades to air-defence systems. Russian missiles have violated Moldovan airspace several times since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, and last month, the airspace had to be temporarily closed when a “balloon-like object” was spotted over the north of the country.
The upgrading of the “solidarity lanes” between Ukraine and Moldova would help clear up the backlogs of trucks commonly seen at border checkpoints. There is also a need for more resources to bolster Moldova against Russia’s hybrid war tactics, which should include robust measures to counter disinformation and cyberattacks.
Moldova rarely ends up on the radar screens in Western capitals, but it needs to be – lest we are prepared to witness the mobilization of the Russian playbook, which has resulted in territorial losses in Ukraine and Georgia.