Watching the war in Ukraine, many in the U.S. and elsewhere are hearing for the first time the name of another country, Moldova. But few in the West know much about it, where it is and what its place is in the geopolitics of Europe.
Despite the visibility that the Baltic states receive in the media as possible targets in Vladimir Putin’s war, the most likely next victim in the path of the Russian army is Moldova, a small country of about 3 million people to the west of Ukraine. When the Belarusian president addressed his security council, the map behind him showed planned troop movements that clearly included Moldova as the only non-Ukrainian target.
As a Moldovan American scientist, my heart breaks at the thought of Moldova becoming the next war-torn territory in Europe.
Like Ukraine, Moldova is a former Soviet republic that’s not a member of NATO. Moldova is a young democracy, building a nation of laws, of citizens participating in government, of freedom of speech and assembly. The president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, is a Harvard-educated young woman who was democratically elected by its citizens in a testament to their desire to live in a free and democratic Europe.
Unfortunately, another similarity with Ukraine is that Moldova, too, has a strip of land in the eastern part of the country that Russia lays claim to. Just like the eastern part of Ukraine was used as the pretext for the war there, the Transnistria region in the east of Moldova is also a “strategic territory” in Putin’s vision of Russian security and a predicted pretext for a similar “military operation” in Moldova.
Since the war started, Moldovans have been helping Ukrainian refugees while they themselves are packing their bags in case the war reaches them too. The younger generation (my cousins’ kids) is planning to escape to Romania while members of the older generation (my aunts and uncles) are planning to stay in their villages because they are elderly.
Members of my generation are in the middle and unsure of what to do — go with their kids and leave behind their parents and homes and everything they’ve ever known, or stay and risk living under Russian occupation for decades again.
Meanwhile, my Russian friends are calling and messaging, with mixed sentiments. My colleague, also a professor at an American university, writes, “For reasons beyond me, I feel responsible for the Russian civilization and am begging your forgiveness for what it brings to the world today.” Others are sending Russian propaganda on Facebook. “How can the Ukranians do this to us? We are their friends. We are there to help them. We are brothers. Moldovans would not react this way to us, would they?” an acquaintance asks with seemingly genuine disbelief.
And herein lies the problem. Many Russians continue to see this as a righteous war. They think of Russia as a liberator, as a beloved big brother. I don’t know if this is cognitive dissonance or Stockholm syndrome.
To say that the Russian government loves us, and to ask us to love it back, is like an abuser telling the abused that they love them and asking for love while holding a gun to their head. How does that saying go? If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours; if it doesn’t, it never was.
After I moved to the United States, year after year I watched with an aching heart the struggles Moldova went through in its attempt to free itself from the grip of the “loving big brother,” just like the other former Soviet republics. Russian-enabled corruption, like the kind that has been threatening American democracy in recent years, is much more successful in bringing down budding democracies that have not yet built strong systems of checks and balances.
Watching images of war on TV, I turned to my Dutch husband. “Moldovans are not fighters, like the Ukranians are,” I said. “We are farmers. The Russian army will occupy Moldova swiftly.”
“Maybe that’s better,” he quipped. “People won’t die. You’ll just have a new president.” I started to cry. “What a thing to say. How would you feel if Russia occupied the Netherlands? How would you feel if Putin was ‘your new president’?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I would be devastated if this happened in the Netherlands,” he finally answered.
The Russian government is calling people fighting for their independence “nationalists.” If nationalists are people who still want to have a nation, to exist, to not be annihilated from the face of the earth and absorbed into Russia, then tell me who is not a nationalist? Would you want your country to be occupied by Russia? Would you want Putin to be your new president?
This war is a turning point. The fate of Ukraine is the fate of Moldova and is the fate of other former Soviet states. It will affect what China does. It will affect energy policy and the global economy.
This war will shape Europe and the world. If there is still a world to shape after it.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Viorica Marian is a Moldovan American professor at Northwestern University and the director of the Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Laboratory.
