As the anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine approaches, Monday’s visit to Kyiv by the US president, Joe Biden – during which he pledged further military support and a new wave of sanctions on Russia – powerfully testified to US solidarity. Mr Biden’s surprise trip, his first since the war began, was as important for its timing and symbolism as its substance. Indirectly, it will also have offered some reassurance a few hundred miles to the south, in the Moldovan capital, Chișinău.
Amid ominous signals that a hybrid campaign against Ukraine’s strategically crucial neighbour is being stepped up, and suggestions that plans for a Kremlin‑backed coup are in place, Moldova is also in need of western assistance. Earlier this month, its pro-European government resigned, having been relentlessly destabilised through crises largely made in Moscow. A new prime minister has been swiftly appointed. But at the Munich security conference, where the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met the Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, Mr Blinken became the most senior western official to voice concern over a potential plot to install a Moscow-friendly regime.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the former Soviet republic of 2.5 million people has been plunged into economic crisis as Russia has restricted energy supplies. Inflation has soared to 30%, and fuel bills have risen to almost the equivalent of a minimum monthly pension. Sunday saw the latest in a succession of street protests allegedly financed and organised by a pro-Russian fugitive oligarch, now living in Israel. As well as protesters bussed in from outside the capital, the demonstrations have also been attended by paramilitary groups and former soldiers.
Cyber-attacks, and disinformation via pro-Russian media outlets have added to the sense of perma-crisis, and Moldova has had to cope with an influx of 700,000 Ukrainian refugees – proportionately more than any other country. Indicating the current level of anxiety, Moldovan airspace was briefly closed last week after a security warning from Kyiv. About 1,500 Russian troops are already stationed in Moldova next to the Ukrainian border, in the unrecognised, Moscow-backed breakaway state of Transnistria.
An outright invasion is unlikely. But familiar features of Mr Putin’s destabilisation playbook in eastern Europe are menacingly present: a frozen conflict that could be reopened; pro-Moscow oligarchs with the money and motive to make trouble, and a sizeable ethnic Russian minority. Mirroring the role of Belarus in the north, a compliant government in Chișinău could allow Mr Putin to exert pressure on Ukraine from the south. Bringing Moldova back into Moscow’s orbit would also bring to an end developing military cooperation with neighbouring Romania, a Nato and EU member.
The new prime minister, Dorin Recean, has pledged to continue Moldova’s pro-European trajectory, after its acceptance as an EU candidate member last year. As the Kremlin continues to weaponise the economic crisis it has helped generate, the west should consider further stepping up levels of humanitarian aid to one of Europe’s poorest countries. It should also offer technical resources and expertise in combating disinformation and cyber-attacks. Inevitably, such assistance will be presented by Moscow as confirmation of the west’s proxy war against Russia. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, recently described Moldova as the west’s new “anti-Russian project”. But the significance of the social unrest on Ukraine’s southern flank must not be ignored.
