Moldavia, ‘On Fire’: Why is it key to the EU and Russia and what is at stake in its elections

This September 28, the Republic will choose a new Parliament in elections that the press, national and international, points out as the most important in its recent history. This small state, with less than 2.4 million inhabitants, a neighbor of Ukraine and who aspires to enter the European Union (EU), is caught by its geographical position, for its past as part of the USSR and for the times of pro -European change.

The tensions between forces and buttresses are formidable and threaten with undesirable instability, by unpredictable. Both are accused of lack of democracy and cleanliness in the elections, dirty play or limits to the adversary. The fear of manipulation by those of worries in Brussels, while citizens just want to walk their own path, without crutches.

This Wednesday, the current Prime Minister of Moldavia, Dorin Recean, has denounced that Russia has the objective of “taking power in Gusináu”, its capital, one more wave in the swell of complaints of the proeuropean forces of an intense interference from Moscow. “The goal of Russia is to take power in Gusináu, violating the sovereign will of the Moldavos,” he said they prescribe in a press conference in which he has warned that they will do everything possible to avoid “the Russian occupation plan,” according to the Moldavo newspaper collected by Europa Press.

Recean has assured that the pressure has not stopped increasing and are increasingly obvious “subversive actions” that arrive from Moscow. On Monday, the police arrested 74 people in an operation that investigates Russia’s involvement in possible disturbances during the next dates, according to the electoral result. Moldavas security forces reported yesterday of more than 250 records practiced that same day in several localities in the country in the framework of a criminal case for preparations for “mass disturbances and destabilizations, coordinated from the Russian Federation by criminal elements.” For that same reason records were also carried out in detention centers and Moldavas prisons.

“The last battle for the future of our country is being fought and everyone urges you to participate with an honest vote,” he encourages, pointing towards the prorous opposition as the beneficiary of these practices, ranging from the purchase of votes, through the organization of violent protests, or computer attacks. , is called.

The president has urged that same opposition to publicly leave the alleged plot dismantled this week, as well as the accusations of purchase of votes, otherwise they would be confirmed that “they are the direct beneficiaries of the electoral corruption financed by the Kremlin.” If they are true defenders of democracy, he says, they will not want a black hand moving the threads of the country.

“The Kremlin has complicit in Moldova,” denounces the president, Maia Sandu, a Europeanist who by the minimum. “If Russia takes control of Moldova, the consequences will be immediate and will threaten both our country and the entire region,” insists the president.

His party, the action and solidarity (PAS), is in trouble and it is not expected to revalidate its majority in the National Chamber, so some kind of agreement with the main prorous forces is not ruled out -which have chosen to go block -and even a repetition of the elections in the case that the block is total. It is one thing to be the first force, which seems to be, and another to govern alone.

A desperate call

On September 9, Sandu pronounced a truly existential plea against the European Parliament (PE), in Strasbourg, within the inclusion process in the community club. “If we cannot protect our democracy, no democracy in Europe will be safe,” he insisted. Beyond the diplomatic rhetoric, the president really asked for help, describing the elections such as the “final battle” for adhesion to the EU and the “most crucial vote in history” of her country.

Since his arrival in power in 2020, Maia Sandu has made the European anchor of Moldova its main political commitment, transforming a country traditionally divided between the East and West into an official candidate for the Union. But this bet, accelerated by the war in Ukraine and the geopolitical opportunities it has opened, is reaching a moment of electoral truth. “It is a counterreloj career: to strengthen our democracy in the European Union, where it will be protected from the greatest threat we face: Russia,” he summarized.

For the supporters of the president, a victory of the action and solidarity party would definitely consolidate the European movement and the EU itself, racing the way to accelerate adhesion negotiations. A defeat, on the other hand, could lead to a period of political instability or a prorous coalition, turning Moldova into a “springboard for hybrid attacks against the European Union”, in the words of President Moldova herself.

With the proximity of the elections, the main challenge for the current presidency is to transform this diplomatic action, applauded in Brussels, into electoral mobilization, especially among the large diaspora of European states. Its translation into popular support is still uncertain. The surveys reveal a persistent gap between the support of principles to European integration and the enthusiasm for the concrete reforms that it implies, as evidenced by the contrasting result of the October referendum, 2024: with 50.35 % of the votes, the Moldovans voted in favor of inclusion in the constitution of the objective of the adhesion to the union.

Russia’s complaint

In this accusations race, Russia’s exterior espionage service (SVR) said Tuesday that “Europe prepares to occupy Moldova”, just the opposite that the current leaders say, and added that currently units of NATO countries “are concentrated in Romania near the Moldavas borders.” “Brussels European bureaucrats are determined to keep Moldova on the path of their rusophobic policies. They plan to do it at any price, including the deployment of troops and the effective occupation of the country,” denounced the SVR in a statement published on its website under the title “Europe prepares to occupy moldavia.”

According to Indisa, “at this stage, NATO member countries concentrate units of their armed forces in Romania near the Moldavas borders.” He added that this scenario has been repeatedly tested in the military exercises carried out by NATO in Romania and “could be implemented after the parliamentary elections in Moldova” next Sunday.

“European officials fear that the rude falsification of the electoral results prepared by Brussels and Chisinau forces the desperate Moldavos citizens to go to the streets to defend their rights,” says the statement.

In that case, adds the SVR, at the request of President Maia Sandu, “European states armed forces must force Moldavos to resign themselves to a dictatorship presented as an Eurodemocracy.” For Russian espionage, Brussels does not have the purpose of giving up its plans to occupy Moldova “even if the development of the situation immediately after the elections does not require foreign interference.”

There was no proof of all this and from the Moldavo government rejected the Russian statements, which cross out of a “falsification” aimed at “intimidating” people. “They have only one goal: to intimidate people and undermine confidence in the European development of the country,” said Daniel Voda, government spokesman, quoted by the portal translates EFE.

According to this spokesman, the SVR statement is a Moscow reaction to the speech to the nation of President Moldova, who said the eve that the independence and sovereignty of that former Soviet Republic are in danger of Russia’s attempts to influence the result of the Moldavas elections.

The Moldova opposition insists on denouncing that members of the security forces visited critical figures with the Europeanist government in the north of the country. According to the socialist Igor Dodon, leader of the country’s safe opposition, the authorities seek to “intimidate and silence” their critics to guarantee the victory of the PAS party.

Complicated position

In the spring of 2022, weeks after Russia launched its “special military operation” on Ukraine, it seemed more than possible that Moscow could also invade moldavia and occupy it, to turn it into a satellite state, as it is today. Western intelligences feared a second open front for Ukraine, which would also have taken Russia to the EU and NATO’s sweat border. To the heart of his adversary.

Since then, European politicians have paid more attention than ever to Moldova and their evolution. In solidarity with Ukraine, the EU granted the two countries the status of the country candidate in June 2022 and several partners, especially Germany, provide military support to Moldova. The accession process advances complying with the stages of planned from the European Commission, even faster than its invaded neighbor, Ukraine.

Most of the territory that composes the Republic of Moldova – the area between the Dniéster and Pruta rivers – belonged to what was known as the Principality of Moldova. Russia annexed part of the Principality (Besarabia) in 1812 and remained as part of the Russian Empire until 1917. At the end of that same year, the Democratic Republic of Moldova declared its independence from Russia. A year later, he joined the kingdom of Romania.

After the Hitler-Stalin pact, Stalin again annexed the territory in 1940 and turned it-along with parts of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova east of the Dniéster River-in a new Soviet Republic. That republic declared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 27, 1991, given the Soviet collapse, creating the Republic of Moldova we know today.

Approximately three quarters of the 2.9 million people living in the Republic of Moldova (including Transnistria) are molds. The most numerous national minority are the Ukrainians, followed by the Gagaúzos, the Russians, the Bulgarians and the Romani. There is also a small number of Poles and Germans. The official language of the country is a Romanian dialect, but the Russian has been very used historically, without discrimination.

The transnistria key

In April 2022, the head of the Russian Center Military District announced that its objective was to control the east and southern Ukraine to open a corridor from the Donbás to the annexed Crimean Peninsula and, thus, to be able to create an access point to the separatist region of Transnistria. Moldova, yes. That is called occupation.

? Between 1989 and 1991, a Romanian National Renaissance movement began to gain strength in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. This uprising triggered power struggles within the Communist Party, among the reformists, who had joined the new national movement, and supporters of the Hard Line of Moscow. Even before Moldova declared his independence from the Soviet Union (91), the Promoscu faction separated from Moldova, creating a separatist regime in the Earth Strip on the eastern shore of the Dniéster: it is known as transnistria.

The reasons used to justify this measure were the alleged discrimination of the Russian speakers and the possibility of reunification with Romania. When the army and security forces of the Republic of Moldova tried to dismantle the separatists in the spring of 1992, the Russian troops, which had been parked in Transnistria since the Soviet era, took arms against the legitimate rulers of the country. This was Russia’s first postsoviet war against an independent country.