Tensions are rising in Moldova, a small country on Ukraine’s southwestern border, where Russia has been accused of laying the groundwork for a coup that could drag the country into war.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu has accused Russia of using “saboteurs” disguised as civilians to stoke unrest amid a period of political instability, echoing similar warnings from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has unfoundedly accused Kiev of planning its own attack on pro-Russian territory in Moldova, where Moscow has a military foothold, raising fears he is creating a pretext for a Russia-style annexation. Crimea.
US President Joe Biden met President Sandu on the sidelines of his trip to Warsaw last week, marking the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Russia.
While there is no sign that it has accepted an invitation to visit, the White House said it reaffirmed its support for Moldova’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
What’s happening in Moldova?
Earlier this month, Zelensky warned that Ukrainian intelligence had intercepted a Russian plan to destabilize an already volatile political situation in Moldova.
The recent resignation of the country’s Prime Minister followed a continuous period of crises, led by rising gas prices and skyrocketing inflation.
Moldova’s new prime minister continued the government’s pro-EU campaign, but since then, pro-Russian protests have taken place in the capital, Chisinau, supported by a fringe pro-Moscow political party.
Amidst the tensions, Moldovan President Sandu made a direct accusation that Russia was trying to take advantage of the situation.
Sandu said the government had planned “a series of actions involving saboteurs who have undergone military training and are disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and hostage taking”.
Sandu also claimed that undercover individuals from the “so-called opposition” would try to force a change of power in Chisinau through “violent actions”. A CNN cannot independently verify these claims.
“It is clear that these threats from Russia and the appetite to escalate the war against us are very big,” said Iulian Groza, formerly Moldovan deputy foreign minister and now director of the Chisinau-based Institute for European Policy and Reform. .
“Moldova is the most affected country after Ukraine (by) the war,” he said. “We are still a small country, with an economy that is still underdeveloped, and that creates a lot of pressure.”
What is Russia planning?
Despite Moscow’s pleas of innocence, its actions towards Moldova bear a striking resemblance to moves it made before its 2014 annexation of Crimea and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
On Tuesday, Putin revoked a 2012 foreign policy decree that partially recognized Moldova’s independence, according to Reuters.
On Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense accused Ukraine of “preparing an armed provocation” against the pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova “in the near future”, state media TASS reported. No evidence or further details were presented to support the ministry’s accusation, and it was rejected by Moldova.
However, the assertion put Western leaders on high alert, almost exactly a year after Putin made similar and unsubstantiated claims that Russians were being targeted in Donbass – Ukraine’s eastern flank where Moscow has supported separatist militants since 2014 – allowing it to launch the invasion. of the country as a matter of self-defense.
“It has been the case before – we have seen constant activity from Russia trying to explore and exploit the information space in Moldova using propaganda,” Groza said.
“With the war, all these instruments that Russia used were multiplied and intensified,” he said. “What we see is a reactivation of Russian political proxies in Moldova.”
“I see a lot of fingerprints of Russian forces, Russian services in Moldova,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told CBS last Sunday. “This is a very weak country and we all need to help them.”
Why does Russia have a foothold in Moldova?
Central to Russia’s interests in Moldova is Transnistria, a breakaway territory that runs along the country’s eastern flank and has hosted Russian troops for decades.
The territory – a 2,000-square-kilometer enclave on the east bank of the Dniester River – was the site of a Russian military outpost during the last years of the Cold War. It declared itself a Soviet republic in 1990, opposing any attempts by Moldova to become an independent state or to merge with Romania after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
When Moldova gained independence the following year, Russia quickly inserted itself as a so-called “peacekeeping force” in Transnistria, sending troops to support pro-Moscow separatists.
War with Moldovan forces ensued, and the conflict ended in a stalemate in 1992. Transnistria was not recognized internationally, not even by Russia, but Moldovan forces left it a de facto breakaway state. That stalemate left the territory and its estimated 500,000 inhabitants trapped in limbo, with Chisinau largely out of control to this day.
Source: CNN Brasil
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