Opinion | If Ukraine falls to Russia, Moldova knows it’s next

Mihai Popsoi, Moldova’s 37-year-old newly minted top diplomat, was in Washington to remind Biden administration officials and lawmakers that the war in Ukraine is not just about Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor two years ago, the 3 million residents of Moldova have faced unprecedented instability and anxiety. Putin is threatening Moldova’s security, squeezing its economy and undermining its democracy, efforts that are all aimed at replacing its pro-Western leadership with a new government bought and paid for by the Kremlin.

While Moldova, under European Union-aligned President Maia Sandu, struggles to fight off Russian meddling and build ties with the West, it knows that its survival as a democracy is contingent on Ukraine’s survival, the foreign minister told me. The only thing standing between Moldova (which has fewer than 10,000 personnel in its armed forces) and a Russian attack is the Ukrainian army.

“It’s not an issue of whether Russian wants to invade, it’s only an issue of if they can,” Popsoi said. “God forbid, if the Russians would feel emboldened, clearly Moldova would be next. And after that, it’s anybody’s guess.”

For now, Russia is waging hybrid warfare in Moldova, whereby the Kremlin is using all available means of leverage and interference to impose its will — short of bombing the country. Moscow has tried to orchestrate a coup, trained fake anti-government protesters, flooded the country with disinformation and funneled illicit cash to pro-Russian opposition parties.

Just last weekend, Moscow hosted a conference for pro-Russian Moldovan opposition leaders, who announced a new election bloc ahead of Moldova’s October presidential elections. The main pro-Russian party is led by Israeli-born Moldovan billionaire Ilan Shor, who was convicted in 2017 of stealing $1 billion from banks in his country. In 2022, the U.S. government sanctioned Shor for working with “corrupt oligarchs and Moscow-based entities to create political unrest in Moldova” and undermine Moldova’s moves to join the European Union.

Moldovans will also vote in October on whether to amend the country’s constitution to enshrine its E.U. membership aspirations. This is what angers Putin most above all, Popsoi said. It’s not lost on Moldovans that Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine was sparked by Kyiv’s turn toward the E.U., and that Putin tries to justify his 2022 invasion by pointing to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.

“The Russians are using our democratic process against us,” Popsoi said. “They are trying to install a pro-Russian authoritarian regime that would mimic the Russian model of government, to stab Ukraine in the back.”

The internationally recognized territory of Moldova includes two regions already with greater loyalty to Moscow. Russia has about 1,500 “peacekeeper” troops in the autonomous region of Transnistria, a strip of land along Ukraine’s Western border, that it could activate as troublemakers at any time. And last year, Moscow scored a success in its political incursions into Moldova when its heavily supported candidate for governor of the autonomous region of Gagauzia won, despite being virtually unknown before her candidacy.

Meanwhile, the Western-leaning Moldovan government has been moving to reduce dependence on Russian energy and to thwart Russian interference, with significant U.S. help. Largely because of U.S. and European investment, Moldova cut its dependence on Russian gas and is now buying U.S.-supplied liquefied natural gas (at lower prices, by the way) through a new cooperative project with Greece.

But there’s a lot more the United States and its partners can and should do. President Biden should show solidarity by inviting Sandu to the White House. Moldova needs more foreign investment in its infrastructure, so it can become a hub for the future reconstruction of Ukraine. It also needs help dealing with Russia’s advances in technology, such as artificial intelligence and deepfakes, which are amplifying the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns.

“Moldova is a petri dish for Russian hybrid warfare,” Popsoi said. “And the tactics that we see being used in Moldova, if the Russians feel they are effective here, they are going to take them on the road.”

There’s a popular narrative in parts of the Republican Party that holds that Ukraine can’t win its war with Russia, and that U.S. aid is only prolonging the conflict. This view, as espoused by Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio) and others, ignores the impact Ukraine’s defeat would have for its neighbors, the rest of the region — and the United States.

“Putin’s ambitions are imperial; he doesn’t deny them. He wants to rebuild the Soviet Union,” the foreign minister said. If Russia isn’t stopped in Ukraine, “then all democracies are in trouble.”

Congress has now sent enough military aid to Ukraine to last the rest of this year. But military attacks are only one tool in the Kremlin’s toolbox. Moldova is sounding an alarm about how the West needs to increase its response to Russia’s other weapons. Putin is counting on Washington to not listen.