Why Is Maia Sandu Burning Bridges with Moscow?

For some reason, Maia Sandu and her entourage abandoned the idea of "resetting" relations with Russia and returned to the traditional rhetoric of addressing Moscow with harsh demands

Sergiu CEBAN, RTA: On Tuesday, a high-level week started at the United Nations headquarters in New York with a regular meeting of the UN General Assembly as a central event. The main topics are the fight against the pandemic, climate change, migration and the situation in Afghanistan. The greatest interest is conventionally focused on the speech of the American president, who, in fact, sets the tone for the international agenda. Joe Biden's speech turned out to be quite conciliatory in the end. In it, he proclaimed a “new era of diplomacy” and a new political direction of the US towards strengthening international cooperation. The key message of the American leader was the desire to convince his counterparts that after Trump's isolationism America is returning to the international arena. It was of great importance for the current American administration to send such positive signals at this exact point. After all, the speech of the White House leader took place amidst the US declining credibility both after the extremely unsuccessful withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and because of the new military alliance AUKUS created recently together with Australia and the United Kingdom. The latter was completed by Washington with absolute disregard for the interests of one of the key NATO allies – France, whose defense industry has suffered serious image and financial damage. At the same time, hardly anyone is truly eager to believe Biden's statements that America is stepping from the era of endless wars onto a wide path for diplomacy. Judging by recent events, it is quite obvious that Washington is making a sharp foreign policy turn and is seriously focusing on the Indo-Pacific region in order to prevent China from becoming the center of economic development and influencing local processes. Such a rapid appearance of AUKUS may indicate that the time of cumbersome military-political blocs is gradually passing, and we will increasingly witness the formation of regional tactical alliances capable of solving important strategic tasks “without wasting time”. Of course, it is too early to say that NATO is going down in history. But it is quite obvious that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be situated on the European continent, losing its former relevance for Washington as an effective tool for implementing its international policy. The idea expressed by the US president from a high rostrum on “democracy living in proud Moldovans”, who achieved victory for democratic forces with a mandate to fight corruption and build a more inclusive economy, literally caused euphoria among Moldovan politicians. Apparently, the internal political reset in Chisinau is still of some symbolic value for the American administration, since our small country was not ignored, and Maia Sandu's first speech at the UN was accompanied by such a pleasant surprise. Before the General Assembly meeting, experts expressed a variety of suggestions on what exactly the Moldovan president, being a symbol of the new direction and fundamental changes in the state, should focus in her speech. However, the public appeal of the well-known human rights organization “Promo-LEX” the day before Sandu’s departure to New York set everything in its place. The Head of state was urged to insist on the ammunition and troops withdrawal of the Russian Federation from the Moldovan territory, to support the need to implement the ECHR decisions on the facts of human rights violations in the Transdniestrian region, as well as to appeal to the UN for a special rapporteur to monitor the respect for human rights on the left bank. Sadly, for the most part, Maia Sandu's report ended up lacking sharp and noticeable moments that would show us the novelty of approaches or fresh ideas proposed by the new country leadership. Perhaps that was intentional, but in the whole relatively smooth speech, only the declarations on the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the left bank population, as well as the position on the complete and unconditional withdrawal of the Russian armed forces with the destruction of ammunition in Colbasna, stood out once again. At the same time, Chisinau counts on the international community’s support in resolving these problems. A few hours before the Moldovan president's speech at the UN, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, who, by the way, had accompanied Dmitry Kozak during a recent trip to Moldova, received the leader of the Tiraspol administration in Moscow, and also gave an interview to one of the leading Russian news agencies. In it, the Russian diplomat, in fact, conveyed two key messages for Chisinau. First, a visit at the level of Maia Sandu is possible only under certain conditions and in the case of careful study of its content. Second, the issue of the fate of the Russian peacekeepers is not subject to discussion until a political settlement is reached in a form acceptable to Tiraspol and Chisinau. There are different ways to assess the importance and feasibility of another re-confirmation by the president of the now traditional statements about the Russian military presence and depots with outdated weapons. A few weeks ago, Chisinau and Moscow seemed to have seriously decided to try and deeply re-evaluate their relations and the whole complex of historical problems that block the establishment of interstate cooperation. However, apparently, for some reason, Maia Sandu and her entourage did abandon the idea of a “reset” and returned to the traditionally strict demands against Russia, probably counting on something. Experts believe that such a sharp rapid turn from Moscow towards the West considering global shift in security emphasis from the European continent to the more important Chinese threat is not very justifiable step of the Moldovan leadership. Perhaps it was worth at least trying to adhere to the balanced and pragmatic foreign policy that was discussed by the ruling party during the electoral period. It seems that such an approach would be much more effective for solving a number of problems with Moscow – from energy security to the Pridnestrovian settlement – than the path of confrontation, which, as ever, might only lead the relations of the two countries to a new impasse.