Moldova’s Sovereignty Is About to Be Completely Lost

The further it goes, the more Moldova’s foreign – and even domestic – policy is becoming a subject of external control. The risks of completely loosing the statehood are greater than ever

Partial mobilization in Russia announced yesterday by Putin dealt the final blow to all hopes that the bloody conflict in Ukraine might soon be over. As a result, even the possible “freezing” of hostilities, much-debated, may only be temporary. But it’s not a fact: my guess is that in the next few days, weeks at most, we will witness Ukraine going into new offensives – Kyiv will try to take maximum advantage before the front is flooded with tens and hundreds of thousands of mobilized Russians. The Russia-West standoff, respectively, is also entering a new level. Mutual threats sound truly threatening. Politicians and the military are no longer shy about waving the nuclear bludgeon in full determination to crush “enemies” and protect their interests at any cost. Amid this geopolitical madness, there is less and less hope with each passing day that Moldova will safely and peacefully survive the “global conflagration”. We are already under the heaviest pressure of all kinds of problems, both objective and those resulting from the “wise” foreign and domestic policy of our “monoparty”. Yet, there is a good chance that soon the PAS’s rule in the country will be virtually nominal. And this will happen, of course, not because of the feeble protests with stagy tents outside the government institutions, but because the real levers of national governance will be completely seized by our development partners. Like some of my colleagues, I have repeatedly argued that, with their actions, our elites have turned Moldova into a pawn in a big geopolitical game. Initially this was done when the time was far more peaceful and stable, but rulers are usually expected to have a perspective, including a long-term one. Our rulers never had such. As a result, the external influence on Moldova grew arithmetically at first – and now exponentially. It reached its peak last year, when a 100% pro-Western “vassal” party took all the power. Everyone remembers what role our friends from the EU and, especially, the U.S. played in this. The fact that the “main embassy” was not so high profile after that should not mislead anyone. It is just that the interim program was 100% implemented, the new “right” government was “bombarded” with cohorts of foreign advisers and consultants, and everything went on as usual. At the same time, as we know, the Americans, and now the Europeans as well, are not too concerned about the integrity of their Moldovan partners, whom they forgive a lot, if not everything, in case of a proper geopolitical orientation. And in the circumstances of this year, any draconian law, both in our country and in Ukraine, received enthusiastic support from the main embassies. Yet, the wheel of history seems to have turned again this week, and now it is no longer enough for us as a “pawn” to be merely submissive, loyal, and sporadically poking the Russian bear. After all, what is the pawn’s main role? To be taken at the moment when its master-player deems it most profitable for himself. And such a moment is now upon us. This can also be seen by the way the U.S. embassy is stirring up again, and by the way our rulers, first of all Maia Sandu, are being carefully courted (read – instructed) by not the lowest Western officials and leaders like Secretary of State Blinken or NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg. The West has two main tasks in our country right now. The first one is to help stabilize the ruling regime. For this purpose, they have increased the volume and frequency of financial donations, although they are still not enough to fully overcome the social crisis. Rather, it is more of a series to keep things from crumbling altogether. PAS also is given instructions on how to deal with the spiraling protest movement. There is evidence of secret talks between our security officers and American officials, as well as open meetings of the latter, accompanied by Ambassador Kent Logsdon, within the walls of the Interior Ministry. We can already see that the senior partners have defined the guidelines for dispersing the protest – naturally, this is all “Kremlin’s machinations”, because in a country that has received the status of an EU candidate, there can simply be no discontented people. Direct actions to disperse the protesters are also being worked out. And the Romanian comrades can render assistance in this business. This week, more than 200 of their gendarmes and our carabineers trained in Galati to “combat street protests”. Task number two: to ensure that all ties between Moldova and Russia are severed soonest. Certainly, first and foremost, the energy ties. It is already more than obvious that our managers, at the instigation of the West, are trying to cause the cancellation of the contract with Gazprom. They have already prepared perks for the elite – we will get gas from Europe, for which the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development even gave a 300-million loan, which will feed all those involved. And the fact that we will have to pay double – as they say, it is the price of freedom and sovereignty. After gas we will probably refuse from Russian electricity from Moldovan GRES as well. Again, overpaying for supplies from Ukraine and Romania is only a small inconvenience for the sake of the listed ideals. After the implementation of these “mobilization” measures, according to the idea of the ruling party’s supervisors, Moldova should be in good shape for a possible critical escalation with Russia. I think that they will start forcing Russian peacekeepers and OGRF out of the left bank of the Dniester, and provocations or even involvement of Ukraine for one-time force actions are possible. The calculation will be that Moscow will not be able to send its forces to such a distant theater, at most it will launch rocket attacks, which would be acceptable and would give the reason to request for military assistance, at least of Romania and Ukraine. After that, the National Army, with tens of millions of dollars of Western money and the support of Kyiv and Bucharest, will take over the tasks of defeating the armed forces of Transdniestria and the Russian troops on the battlefield. A fantastic scenario, you might say? Hardly so. The ground is being prepared. Or why did Head of the Romanian General Staff Daniel Petrescu come to us? Or why, do you think, we have the trilateral – with the participation of Romania and the USA – exercise “Fire Shield-2022” with the practice of combat readiness, artillery firing? And all the plans of cooperation with NATO, the centers of the Alliance in Moldova, the financial injections? But even without war, the risk of completely losing sovereignty is almost inevitable. For now, it is de facto, since the key spheres in the country are taken over by external players. And later it will also be de jure, when, under the pretext of the Russian threat, they initiate Unirea to go under the NATO security umbrella. Playtime is over. We have already come to the very brink of the abyss, and whether we are ready to step into it at the order of the West will become clear on October 1. But even if the gas supplies are resolved, and the Transdniestrian conflict does not erupt before the end of the year, the trajectory of movement still seems clear to me. But it is not at all clear how to get off of it.