Of all the states of the former Soviet Union, Moldova does not immediately seem to have strategic importance for the West. She is small (population under 2.5 million), landlocked, and one of the poorest of the countries in the wider European continent: its GDP per capita (per IMF estimates for 2024) is just $7,400; only Kosovo and Ukraine are lower. Moldova has negligible natural resources, has historically imported most of its energy from Russia, and most of us probably only are aware of its economy (if we are at all) as a producer and exporter of wine.
Today’s state of Moldova - approximately the land known in history as Bessarabia - is one of those borderlands whose fate has been a function of its neighbouring empires. Contested between Ottomans and Poles, it approached semi-independence (with Wallachia in what is now Romania) as the Principality of Moldavia, before passing to the Russian Empire in 1812. The southern tip of Bessarabia was ceded to what was to be come independent Romania after the Crimean War, losing access to the Black Sea (a division which holds to this day, as these part of Ukraine), but was handed back to Russia in 1878. Briefly independent following the Russian Revolution, the region passed to Romania again in the post-Versailles negotiations as part of what was effectively a side-deal between Britain, France and Romania.
The USSR did not recognise the transfer, but got it back as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The border with Romania remains to this day.
Transnistria - the frozen conflict
A sliver of land to the east of the river Dniester, along with what is now part of the Odessa oblast of Ukraine, was carved out of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924 as the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (the division down from an SSR). The reason was political, not practical: to point out to Romania that the USSR did not recognise its sovereignty over Moldova. Unlike Moldova proper, which to this day is largely (75%) ethnically Romanian, Transnistria is roughly equally split between Russians (now the largest ethnicity), Ukrainians and Romanians. Transnistria united with Bessarabia in 1940 and were “upgraded” to become the Moldovan SSR. (The rest - and the southern Black Sea littoral - stayed with the Ukrainian SSR.)
The late days of the Soviet Union saw movements which challenged the borders of the constituent republics - as central authority waned, nationalisms rose, presciently, given the coming dissolution. That arrived sooner than anybody expected; what had been internal borders suddenly mattered, for practical and ideological reasons.
Concerned about the relegation of the Russian language to second-class status, and fearing that the rest of Moldova may seek some day to join Romania, what is now Transnistria declared itself “independent” as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR after a referendum in 1990. It was not recognised by either Moldova or Moscow, but following the short war (the least bloody of the “frozen conflicts” of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia) it has maintained de facto independence since 1992.
Russia maintains a military presence, but it retains relations with Moldova proper. As a parallel to the situation in Ukraine, Transnistria is the more industrialised part of the country. Most of its exports are to Moldova, and there is more trade with the EU (through Moldova’s Association Agreement) than with Russia. Unlike other frozen conflicts, citizens of Transnistria vote in (and are accepted by) Moldova, albeit they have to cross the Dniester to do so.
For its near-half million citizens, it is the most ice-cool of frozen conflicts. However, for the “Rules Based International Order” (for which read the West), the USSR's internal borders are regarded as sacrosanct, irrespective of history, or the reality on the ground.
The economics of elections
Last month, Moldova went through two rounds of presidential elections, the first being run alongside a referendum on the country’s future with the European Union. The referendum passed (by the slimmest of margins - around 10,000 votes), and the pro-EU president Maia Sandu retained power, leading to much rejoicing in the West of Russian influence being defeated. But both the election and referendum were largely performative.
As in many EU-candidate countries, the legal and practical framework towards accession (whether or not it comes) has been in place for some time: a “liberalising” of law and judicial procedures, trade and intellectual property standards, and most importantly, visa-free travel and relaxed employment opportunities in the West. The referendum was about something further: enshrining the drive towards EU accession in the constitution itself (a similar constitutional commitment is operative in Georgia).
To quote a Moldovan source:
European integration was already enshrined in Moldovan law, so a referendum on the question was unnecessary. Already in 2005, the Moldovan parliament unanimously voted for a Declaration regarding the European Integration of Moldova, which proclaimed the irreversibility of the process of EU integration of the country. In 2014, the Constitutional Court, while examining the constitutionality of the Association Agreement, ruled that not only was the Agreement constitutional, but also that the integration of Moldova into the EU is a fundamental part of the constitutional identity of Moldova and that any other orientation of foreign policy, which is contrary to EU integration, is a priori anti-constitutional.
Thus, the process of EU integration is fully protected by the existing legal framework, and the referendum in 2024 did not add anything crucial.
The rhetoric run by Sandu and the government is that amending the constitution will make it harder for any future government to renege on the country’s European aspirations. The recent elections in Georgia tend to disprove this: there, the ruling Georgian Dream party is distinctly moving away from a simply pro-European position to seeking an accommodation with Russia, whilst retaining EU (and NATO) accession as a “formal” position.
The performative referendum may be seen as a device to tie the President to the European issue; to be “above politics” at a time when the government is unpopular. Given the wider geopolitical situation, however, the struggle of a nascent democracy against “Russian Interference” fits Western narratives conveniently.
The run-off for the Presidency between Sandu and openly pro-Russian socialist candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo was even more stark. Sandu’s clear victory (55% to 45%) was proclaimed in the West with delight, from von der Leyen to Macron and Zelensky. Polish PM Donald Tusk said “despite Russia’s aggressive and massive interference … Let’s hope that this trend will continue in the coming days and months in other countries as well.”
As to Russian interference: “Direct Russian influence, be it in the form of media, political and financial pressure was, to begin with, difficult to exert. Russian media – TV, radio, newspapers, websites – has been almost entirely banished in Moldova starting from 2022.” Pro-government sources claim “$39 million was paid to more than 130,000 recipients through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank to voters between September and October.” Meanwhile, the EU boasts “On 10 October 2024, the Commission presented the Growth Plan for Moldova with its €1.8 billion Reform & Facility to support its socio-economic reforms and boost investment.”
The reality is much more divided, and troubling. A glance at the election results map shows part of the story: strong support for Sandu in the central zone around the capital; strong opposition to her elsewhere (particularly in Transnistria and the south, populated by ethnically Turkic Gagauzians).
But the key issue is this: Stoianoglo actually won the popular vote in Moldova itself. Sandu was saved by the diaspora vote: of the 327,000 votes from abroad (including Russia!) some 82% were for Sandu.
Are these Moldovan expats simply more liberal and Western-oriented than their rural counterparts? Possibly, but economic realities are likely as much of a cause. Censuses in 2004 and 2014 show the population decreased from 3.3 million to 2.8 million; economic emigration is endemic. Remittances from the diaspora are estimated to account for 15.8% of the GDP of the country.
This is the reality of the accession train: for a poor country, access to European labour markets creates a doom spiral of emigration, tying in the economic interests of an increasing proportion of the population to a European future (whether they believe in it or not), forever weakening the economy of the target country. Expat workers fear for their livelihoods, neither do those relatives at home who have come to depend on their money.
The Promethean Ponzi Scheme
Europhiles at this point may raise an objection: isn’t this what the former Eastern-bloc countries been through before? How are Poland and Hungary now?
Military hero of 1920 Polish-Soviet war, Józef Piłsudski has a good claim to have stopped Communism advancing westwards after the Great War; we must thank the defiant Poles for the “Miracle at the Vistula”. As Chief of State, and later as Prime Minister of Poland, two of his inter-related geopolitical concepts still hold influence today.
One is the Intermarium: a block of countries linking the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean Seas as a counter to Russian expansion westwards. At its most extreme, this was inspired by the idea of recreating something like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 16th to 18th centuries as a federated structure from Tallinn to Dubrovnik and Varna (including Moldova, then part of Romania). This is actively being developed (under the sponsorship of the United States) as the Three Seas Initiative.
The second is Prometheanism: the concept of weakening the Russian Empire, and following the revolution, the USSR, through separatist and nationalist movements in an arc ranging from Ukraine, through the Kuban and Don basins, and down to the South Caucasus. Piłsudski wrote in 1904:
Poland's strength and importance among the constituent parts of the Russian state embolden us to set ourselves the political goal of breaking up the Russian state into its main constituents and emancipating the countries that have been forcibly incorporated into that empire. We regard this not only as the fulfilment of our country's cultural strivings for independent existence, but also as a guarantee of that existence, since a Russia divested of her conquests will be sufficiently weakened that she will cease to be a formidable and dangerous neighbor.
Prometheus is, of course, the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the Gods, for which he is chained to a rock on Mount Kazbegi (on the border of Georgia and the Russian Federation); and whose liver is eaten daily by the eagle of Zeus, only to grow back again each night. (Those of us who have experienced the drinking habits of the Caucasus will note the verity of the myth.)
Prometheanism of the 1920s involved setting up “governments in exile” of Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine and others, principally in Paris and Warsaw. Little came from this at the time, but ideas linger. Not all of them are as laughable as Gunther Fehlinger.
Poland again is leading the way with the Three Seas Initiative: it is in the countries formerly part of the Warsaw Pact (note the location) that opposition to Russia cuts hardest. Poland has raced to spending over the NATO target of 3% of GDP on defence (current estimates put it above even the US). Energy “independence” is key; the Three Seas countries are keen builders of nuclear, although in the meantime gas (increasingly more of it Russian) will be piped from Baku.
It is not just in hard power that the new Intermarium is impressing itself: here, in Moldova’s capital last March:
Chișinău – Eight European countries have signed a letter urging big tech companies to act against foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation campaigns that undermine peace and stability across Europe. The signatories of the letter include Prime-Ministers of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovak Republic, Ukraine, and Prime-Minister of the Republic of Moldova.
Poland has leveraged herself nicely on the geopolitical faultline between east and west. It is hard to begrudge a country which has suffered so much in the last century having some respite, even though it is with the clear backing of the Western powers in general, and the US in particular (the long shadow of Zbigniew Brzezinski looms).
In 2007, a statue of Prometheus was dedicated in Tbilisi by the then presidents of Georgia and Poland, Mikheil Saakashvili and Lech Kaczynski. The current US ambassador to Poland is none other than Mark Brzezinski (Zbig’s son). The US is a strong supporter of the Three Seas Initiative. There is a clear interest in keeping Moldova in the Western camp, particularly in the context of the Ukrainian war, and the temptation for Russia to take extend its conquests west of the Dnieper to the borders of Transnistria, taking the entire Black Sea coast.
Geopolitical power in Europe is moving eastwards, and Piłsudski’s ideas are coming to pass after a century. Spare a thought, though, for those countries at the bottom of what amounts to an economic and geopolitical Ponzi scheme - Moldova amongst them.