Expert: The President of Moldova Went to the U.S. at the Worst Possible Time

Vladimir Rotar Igor Dodon’s visit to the United States was to open the way for the Moldovan President to the high offices of world capitals. However, the circumstances of the trip may damage Dodon’s position in Moscow This week Igor Dodon went on a working visit to the United States. Unlike the recent trip of Prime Minister Maia Sandu, the President’s tour will last for a week. During this time, Dodon expects to speak from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly and meet with representatives of the US establishment. He will also actively communicate with many world leaders who came to New York. Dodon’s American trip is an important stage of the Moldovan leader’s long journey to ‘legalization’ in the West. More recently, the head of state was actually ‘persona non grata’ in the US and the EU, as well as in neighboring Ukraine and Romania. Dodon was considered almost a puppet of the Kremlin, receiving direct instructions from Putin. The image of the pro-Russian politician frankly burdened the Moldovan leader. In the language of the sea analogies of Prime Minister Maia Sandu, the Russian bay got too narrow for the Dodon ship. Now the presidential vessel has set off on a grand voyage towards new territories and opportunities. A two-day visit to Brussels and meetings with the leadership of the European Union and NATO, regular meetings with US Ambassador Dereck Hogan (much more frequent than with Russian Ambassador Oleg Vasnetsov) – Dodon’s desire to please the West is undeniable. For the sake of this, he even softened his position on some fundamental issues. For example, he began to speak about the Association Agreement with the EU in a positive tone, and also recognized the territorial integrity of Ukraine, thereby renouncing his words about “Russian Crimea”. The current trip to the United States is almost the main peak on Dodon’s way to the world of big world politics. It is interesting that the Prime Minister from Moldova went to the UN General Assembly in recent years. Maia Sandu explained the change of head of delegation that the government is “too busy”, and she “asked” the President to go to New York. It is hard to believe since it is unlikely that such an experienced politician as Sandu could not understand the importance of the event in terms of public image and self-publicity. The version of Moldovan experts that it was an agreement between the PSRM and ACUM is much more likely. Over the past days since the beginning of the visit Dodon managed to talk to many world leaders. However, the President’s choice of contacts is somewhat discouraging. Meetings with the heads of the Baltic states, communication with the President of Romania Klaus Iohannis and a joint photo with the Trumps is not what you would expect from a seemingly Moscow-friendly politician. At the same time, Dodon has not yet found time to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is also present at the UN General Assembly. Paradoxically, the current ruling coalition of Moldova is frankly not good at visiting the United States. Experts pointed out that the visit to America of the government delegation with Nastase and Sandu ended in nothing. This is largely due to the ACUM government’s lack of a clear agenda that could interest Washington. In the case of Igor Dodon, bad luck is not about the absence of results – no one really expected them from the President’s visit to New York, especially since formally this is a trip to the UN, not to visit Trump. The problem with the presidential visit is that it has purely image goals. But the Dodon’s meetings, and most importantly the international background in which the President is photographed with a smile with foreign leaders, are frankly inopportune. First, the leader of Ukraine from the UN rostrum, though expected, but still called Russia an aggressor. At the same time, Donald Trump, under pressure from Parliament, published a transcript of the summer conversation with Zelensky, where the ‘servant of the people’ quite casually asks for more American weapons, brands the European Union with unwillingness to properly pressure Russia with sanctions and admits that Washington is Kyiv’s main ally. It seems that an imminent reset of relations between the EU, the US and Russia is under serious threat. Stories around Ukraine show that global players have not gone too far from their extreme positions, and everyone masks its batteries. This assumption is proved by the comment of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who publicly compared Donbas with unrecognized Transdniestria. Experienced experts could not but see this as a direct response to Zelensky: the ‘servant of the people’ has recently called the Transdniestrian problem a negative scenario for Eastern Ukraine, moreover, that Ukrainian politicians and experts have been scaring themselves with ‘the pridnestrovization’ of Donbas for several years. The general context of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York is clearly conflicting. At the same time, Igor Dodon does not give up hope to strengthen his image and continues international networking. However, meetings with the leaders of Romania and the Baltic States, which are in particularly warm relations with Moscow, are unlikely to benefit Dodon’s positions in the East, among his ‘traditional partners’. An attempt to build an image in the situation of geopolitical squabbles through controversial meetings and achievements can lead to completely unexpected outcome, at least not to what Igor Dodon expects from his American tour.