Geopolitical Warm-Up of Moldova

Sergiu CEBAN

The high noon, when influential players will decide Moldova’s fate, seems to be very close - and our authorities, despite all the warnings, are not ready for it at all

By the end of last week, the energy crisis on the banks of the Dniester has reached its climax. The cessation of gas supplies to Transnistria has become a serious destabilizing factor. Today we face the continuing difficult socio-humanitarian and economic situation on the left bank. However, no one could have imagined that the attempts to find a solution and to resume gas supply to the region would turn into such a fierce public dispute between Chisinau and Tiraspol. Its outcome has already been the scandalous cancellation of the meeting of negotiators. At the same time, representatives of the energy sector met at the OSCE office on Friday, but nothing is known about the content of their talks. However, analyzing the rhetoric from both sides, one can easily assume that it has not yet been possible to reach a common solution. It is reasonable to wonder how these people are going to agree on serious issues when they cannot manage such crises and continue to hold citizens hostage to political and personal ambitions. In fact, the developing situation is a serious marker of how both sides will behave if they are actually tasked with finding a way to co-exist from somewhere, let’s say from above. Let us not make conspiracy theories about the artificial origin of the current crisis. Nevertheless, the happened energy shock has considerably increased the attention to Moldova not only in the foreign press, but also in the international-political sense. Many countries started to update the Moldovan file in a hurry. But, most importantly, our file was put on the tables in key capitals that have long been interested in our country and the settlement of its territorial conflict. Of course, first of all, we should look at the United States. It is still difficult to say who exactly will determine US policy in our direction. The new White House administration has already dismissed several prominent State Department officials, among them Derek Hogan, the architect and curator of the ruling Moldovan regime. He was just a representative of the very American establishment close to the Democratic Party. For sure, the White House needs “new” faces for new tasks and goals, including in the post-Soviet perimeter. It is not yet known what Washington will do, whether it will toughen its tactics or, on the contrary, loosen its grip. But we can say for sure that there will be changes in American policy. The opening speech of Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio, which he recently delivered to senators, is a testament to this. A landmark moment was the recognition of the failure of the entire American geopolitical doctrine after the end of the Cold War. Rubio observes that after 1991, the US and its allies fell into the delusion that there was an “end of history” and now all countries would coalesce into a single liberal-democratic world led by Washington. The future head of the State Department countered this vision with a vision centered on US national interests instead of globalist liberalism. It is quite possible that the logic of the actions of the renewed American diplomacy in our region will be based on the results of the much-anticipated contact between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The very fact of an open exchange of signals suggests that the closed channels are already at least probing possible topics of conversation between the two presidents. Meanwhile, the US media report that it could take place in just a few days. We are not going to exaggerate Moldova’s importance for major international players, but we are more than confident that the post-Soviet space and the wider Northern Black Sea region will become one of the (sub)topics of negotiations between Washington and Moscow. The prospects for ending the war in Ukraine, which Trump views as a burden inherited from the previous administration, will largely depend on whether a compromise on the geopolitical status of this space can be found. It is clear that Moldova is always within sight of the Russian Federation. But we should pay attention to the fact that the Moldovan dossier seems to have already reached the Kremlin and is being studied by Putin’s entourage. It is not by chance that Nikolai Patrushev, the Russian presidential aide and permanent member of the Security Council, has started to speak out about us. He recently said that “the aggressive anti-Russian policy of Chisinau will lead either to Moldova’s joining another state or to the termination of its existence”. The authorities have no doubt long been accustomed to such jabs from Moscow. Our Foreign Ministry therefore “fired back”, condemning Patrushev’s remarks and calling them “inadmissible interference in internal affairs aimed at destabilization”. Well, indeed, it sounded insulting and a bit disrespectful. On the other hand, contemporary international politics is increasingly taking on the characteristics of a large dark neighborhood where all-powerful bullies are at work. Just look at the remarks made today by incoming US President Donald Trump about his immediate neighbors and the constitutional territories belonging to a NATO ally. As unpleasant as it may be, in all likelihood, in the coming years we will increasingly face statements of this kind, which are not only a reflection of the positions of influential powers, but also a kind of claim to certain geographical areas. That is the statements of officials close to Putin should be read with all seriousness. After all, such messages may not even be addressed to us, but to those who are already openly demonstrating their readiness to reshape the political map of the world and divide it into spheres of geopolitical, raw materials and transport and logistics influence. Last week, the Russian ambassador, who travelled to Tiraspol in the midst of the energy crisis, sent messages directly addressed to Chisinau. If we take out the main points, it turns out that Moscow supports the resumption of the 5+2 format and direct dialogue between the two banks, and Russia, of course, is ready to be a mediator. We have written about it so often, experts and analysts have been looking for “that very moment”, and it seems that it is about to come. I would not like to rush the events, but according to the totality of circumstances, we can say that many people have already felt the first signs of geopolitical warm-up of the “Moldovan issue”. How much has been said that Chisinau should approach this historical point fully armed and ready to defend its interests, offering those who will determine our fate for the next decades its own model of integration into the new political reality. However, the day after day successive crisis episodes indicate that our leadership has irresponsibly wasted its time and is in complete confusion. The authorities are completely unable to administer the crisis not only on a national scale, but even in a single village (Copanca). Therefore, we can hardly imagine how any of the actors would want to talk to our leadership about issues of strategic importance for the country.