The Escalating Situation in Moldova: An Overview

In Moldova, the problems are escalating and the danger of another war in Europe is increasing. Transnistria, in particular, could become a powder keg igniting a major European war.

Largely unnoticed by the German media, the situation in Moldova is escalating. A new military conflict threatens. The country's pro-Western government is responsible for a rapid impoverishment in the country and blames Russia for the ongoing protests in the country. In addition, the government wants to "Romanianize" the country, where many national minorities live, and it is not excluded that the government wants to pursue the annexation of Moldova to Romania.

In addition, the government wants to lead the country into NATO, which is rejected by a very large majority in Moldova, which has explicitly written the status of a neutral state into the constitution. In addition, there is the conflict with the breakaway Republic of Transnistria, which is mostly pro-Russian. After a civil war in the early 90s, a Russian peacekeeping force secures the contact line, where there have been no incidents for decades.

However, the Russian unit also has a huge ammunition depot in the area, one of the largest in the world. According to approximate estimates, 20,000 tons of weapons are stored there. In addition, there is the equivalent of 2,600 freight cars of ammunition and another 500 freight cars of pure explosives. The weapons depot arouses ambitions in Kiev and the situation on the Ukrainian-Transnistrian border is therefore becoming increasingly tense.

I will summarise here the developments in Moldova that have taken place there since my last article on the situation in the country about three weeks ago.

The tense situation in Transnistria

On February 27, Natalia Gumenyuk, spokeswoman for the Southern Operations Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, stated that units of Ukrainian troops will be concentrated near the border with Transnistria:

"Our forces are concentrated along the border and correspond to the hypothetical possible threat."

This justification makes you pay attention. Up to 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed in Transnistria as peacekeepers to secure the contact line between Moldova and Transnistria. The Armed Forces of Transnistria comprise a maximum of 20,000 soldiers. Since there is no land connection between Russia and Transnistria, it is impossible for Russia to reinforce, supply and supply Russian troops in the event of war. The 1,500 Russian soldiers stationed there but cut off from Russia certainly do not pose a military threat to Ukraine as long as Russia does not control a land corridor along the Black Sea coast from Crimea to Transnistria, including the city of Odessa. And Russia is currently far from that.

On February 28, Ukraine also announced that it would build border fortifications along the border with Transnistria.

Experts therefore suspect that Ukraine – possibly together with Moldova, which wants control of Transnistria back – could try to attack Transnistria, firstly to destroy Russian troops there and, secondly, to get the much-needed ammunition under control. This would be all the more attractive for Kiev, since the Russian units would hardly be able to resist such an attack from all sides for long, which would bring Kiev a victory that could be used for propaganda purposes and humiliate Russia.

An indication that this is not out of thin air was provided by the head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Alexei Danilov, on March 3, when he said in an interview that if Moldovan President Sandu asks for military assistance in the situation around Transnistria, "it can be considered taking into account all processes and circumstances. All the more so because we are neighbours."

On March 9, the Transnistrian secret service reported that it had foiled an assassination attempt against the Transnistrian head of government. Accordingly, two men were arrested who, on behalf of the Ukrainian secret service, were supposed to detonate a car bomb next to the vehicle of the head of government. Kiev, of course, denies having anything to do with it.

The Romanianization of Moldova

I have often reported that Moldovan President Sandu is trying – not even too secretly – to Romanianize Moldova. On 27th February the Moldovan government introduced a law in parliament to change the name of the state language from Moldovan to Romanian.

The dispute over the name of the language has been raging in Moldova since 1989, when the parliament declared Moldovan the state language in the course of perestroika and replaced the Cyrillic script used until then with the Latin script. At the same time, the holiday "Our Language" was introduced, named after the poem of the same name by Alexei Mateevici (1888–1917), a classic of Moldovan literature. In 1994, this poem became the text of the national anthem.

In 2013, the controversy flared up again after the Moldovan Constitutional Court declared Romanian an official language, citing the "primacy" of the text of the Moldovan Declaration of Independence over the constitution, which mentioned the Romanian language. The Declaration of Independence was adopted by parliament in 1991 and the authors have admitted that it was written with the help of diplomats from neighbouring Romania. However, the constitution has not been changed and the question of the name of the language spoken in Moldova remains one of the causes of tension in society.

Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon and the opposition Socialist Party argue that Moldovan is the state language and that the Constitutional Court's decision to rename it is illegal. According to surveys, the majority of the country's population believes that the state language is Moldovan.

The current issue is whether a simple majority that the government has in parliament is sufficient for the renaming of the state language from Moldovan to Romanian, or whether this is a constitutional amendment that requires a two-thirds majority. During the debate on this dispute, there were fights in parliament on 2 March between members of the government and the opposition.

Anti-government protests

I have often reported on the protests that have been taking place in Moldova since last summer. The protests are primarily directed against the policies of the pro-Western government, which has effectively abandoned Russian gas and is buying gas at many times higher European stock market prices, which has led to an explosion in electricity and heating prices in the already destitute country. You can find more details at the end of the article.

Despite a ban on demonstrations, the police cleared the way on February 28 after brief negotiations with the organizers of a large demonstration and the large demonstration with thousands of participants was able to move unhindered through the center of the capital. People chanted "Victory", "The police are with us", "We are the people", "Down with President Maia Sandu" and "Down with the dictatorship".

The most important demand of the demonstrators on the day was that the country's defense budget be cut in favor of social measures to compensate for the exploding housing costs. The government had increased the defense budget for 2023 by 68 percent compared to the previous year.

The Moldovan gas crisis

Moldova's gas supply contract with Gazprom expired at the end of 2021 and negotiations on a new contract were difficult because Moldova had unpaid gas bills. Nevertheless, Gazprom finally agreed to conclude a new contract and postponed the settlement of the debt. As we know today, this was not Gazprom's decision, but Gazprom continued deliveries because Putin ordered it to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Moldova. The dispute caused quite a stir in the media at the time, the details can be found here.

However, Moldova has remained an unreliable payer even after that, paying only once on time. Therefore, the gas crisis continued unabated, which gave the government the pretext to extend the state of emergency, because it must be explicitly extended every 90 days in Moldova. The government has created the pretext for extending the state of emergency and the associated – formally legally legal – restriction of freedom of the press and civil liberties.

But that's not all. The destitute country could have purchased gas from Gazprom at a price of $430 per thousand cubic meters if it had fulfilled its obligations under the supply contracts and paid on time. At the time, the price of gas in Europe was $2,000, so that was a real "bargain price." Since gas prices under such long-term contracts are linked to a basket of energy sources, the price of gas would be even lower today and would in any case be far below what Moldova has to pay for gas on the European stock exchange.

However, the Moldovan government did not have a contract with Gazprom and therefore sabotaged it with the continued non-payment. Now it buys the gas for up to four times the price on the European market. And because Moldova cannot afford this, President Sandu has begged the EU for money, which Germany and France promptly provided her. In November 2022, the two countries promised Moldova 130 million euros at a donor conference so that Moldova could buy its gas from the EU, which is itself in a gas crisis.

Read more of our GR Analysis