What Does the US State Department Reshuffle Promise Moldova?

Vladimir ROTAR Many post-Soviet space significant figures are getting back to the US State Department. An example is Victoria Nuland, who once “blessed” Plahotniuc's rule in Moldova Last week, the new US President Joseph Biden inauguration took place in the American capital and ended the extremely intense electoral race. Despite fears (or rather, thanks to unprecedented security measures), no excesses happened like the recent the Capitol building seizure and Donald Trump nevertheless "handed over" the White House to his opponent. Now, Biden can fully engage in state affairs, especially since the United States now faces many challenges, both on the internal and external perimeter. At the same time, for the Eastern European region countries’ leaderships, one of the most important points is, of course the elected president’s policy towards Russia. Previously, the new American leaders at least declared a desire to build relations with Moscow from scratch, or even symbolically announced the restart of the interstate dialogue. However, the beginning of Biden's presidential term falls on the acute confrontation period phase, which does not even think to slow down. Against this background, there seems to be no question of any attempts at reconciliation. On the contrary: Biden's statements about Russia as "the main threat to the United States," the Washington Post publication (that Biden does not intend to "restart" relations with Russia and is preparing new measures in response to its "aggressive actions") leave no doubt as to new administration’s intention to further wind the spiral of confrontation. Moreover, White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said that the American leader ordered the intelligence services to collect information about the alleged hostile actions of the Russian Federation: “The President asked our intelligence services to prepare an assessment of the hacker attack on Solar Winds, Russian interference in the 2020 elections, the use of chemical weapons against the leader opposition of Alexei Navalny, as well as data on the payment of money for attacks on the US military in Afghanistan. " All these accusations, no matter how hard to guess, will form the basis for further packages of US sanctions against Russia this year. It should be noted that confrontation’s intensification at the current stage is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American establishment (which could be clearly observed during Donald Trump’s presidency). In addition, Biden will have not only many ideological and sincere supporters regarding the Russian-American confrontation, but also great political opportunities: for the first time since 2010, his Democratic Party won a majority in both houses of Congress. In this regard, the expert community’s attention is riveted by new president’s personnel appointments. Already many called a "democratic reaction" when Joseph Biden arrived in the White House. This is primarily due to the massive return to key positions of officials during the presidency of Barack Obama. For example, Anthony Blinken, who was the second person in the State Department in 2015-2017, was appointed to the post of Secretary of State. And his deputy for political affairs was Victoria Nuland, notorious in our area, the former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2013-2017). The most memorable episode of her career was her personal participation in the events on the Maidan and namely, distributing cookies to protesters. The episode was widely publicized by Russian propaganda as a symbol of the American footprint in the dramatic events in Kiev in early 2014. However, it is not entirely unfounded: in the future, Nuland did repeatedly "manually" moderate the Ukrainian political processes up to the approval of specific personnel appointments. She also played an important role in the history of Moldova. Her name is associated with odious oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc’s total control formalization over our republic. During the period of mass protests in 2015-2016, it was the US Assistant Secretary of State who expressed support for Plahotniuc's steps to form a parliamentary majority and a government under the Democratic Party auspices, as well as the intention to provide appropriate political and financial assistance. A little later, at a meeting with Plahotniuc, Nuland positively assessed Chisinau’s actions, uttering the famous phrase “keep up the good work and we will support you” (which was especially important given European Union being obviously discontent with Moldova). In addition, she "blessed" Pavel Philip’s night government, actually approving Plahotniuc’s "label for reigning" in the country. Being supported by Victoria Nuland and the ruling Democratic Party in the United States that provided Vlad Plahotniuc with considerable financial resources, the puppeteer spent on lobbying his interests in Washington. At the same time, the situation with Plahotniuc became a vivid manifestation of the classic American approach to foreign policy "he may be a son of a bitch, but this is our son of a bitch." The PDM leader skillfully caught the current geopolitical trends, embedding Moldova to one degree or another in the global Russian-American confrontation. During the period of his sovereign rule, Chisinau took a number of hostile steps towards the Russian Federation. All-round pressure on the Russian military contingent in the region is intensifying up to the push of a corresponding resolution in the UN, the broadcasting of Russian news and analytical programs is canceled, the status of Russian as a language of interethnic communication is abolished. There are regular deportations of Russian officials, experts, cultural figures, etc. Thus, the master of Moldova compensated the stagnation within European integration transformations’ implementation by strict fulfillment of vassal duties in foreign policy. The EU categorically disliked this situation (reforms failure and rough political moves, such as the non-recognition of Chisinau mayoral election in 2018, ultimately led to a complete freeze of European aid), but much more pragmatic Washington was quite happy with it. And the attitude of the same Nuland to the role of the European Union in Eastern European affairs is well known. Her current return to the State Department fits in well with plans to further raise rates in the fight against Moscow. Nuland is an ardent supporter of increased opposition to the Kremlin's plans and tougher sanctions policy. While still in retirement, she recommended that Washington recall the methods of the Cold War in relations with Russia. Against this background, the insiders about the White House's intention to increase attention to the post-Soviet space, especially to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, look no surprise. Most likely, these countries will again be assigned an important role in building a belt of states unfriendly to Russia, which will force the Kremlin to throw additional forces in this direction and as a result, additionally deplete its resources. This means that Moldova runs the risk of becoming an arena of active geopolitical confrontation again. Not that it has completely lost this status in recent years - but after Plahotniuc’s escape, Chisinau at the very least tried to play a balanced foreign policy, abandoning openly unfriendly steps and rhetoric towards partners both in the West and in the East. In modern realities, such an approach is unlikely to satisfy the new American administration, which, on the contrary, will require from Moldova much stronger displays of loyalty and participation in the global battle with Russia. First of all, by putting pressure on the rebellious Transdniestria and the Russian troops stationed there. It is also possible that Washington will sanction the cleansing of Moldovan political field from all more or less pro-Russian forces. Anyway, all this will be difficult to implement in the current Moldovan political mess, where various state institutions and parties are busier since fiercely struggling among themselves. The United States will certainly want to restore order in the republic in such a way as to ensure Moldovan government’s stability, monolithic status and predictability. This means there’s the need for a strong political figure, capable of keeping the country “in a single fist” (and with whom it will be convenient to conduct a dialogue), as Vlad Plahotniuc did. Perhaps the puppeteer himself will become it.