The president of Moldova Maia Sandu has warned that her country’s independence and European future are in danger after police arrested dozens of people accused of involvement in a plot to stoke violent disorder, allegedly backed by Russia.
Just days before Sunday’s pivotal parliamentary elections, Moldovan police said they had confiscated weapons and explosives in raids across the country.
They allege some of the 74 detainees had travelled to Serbia for training by Russian instructors, including with firearms.
Addressing the nation, President Sandu accused the Kremlin of “pouring hundreds of millions of euros” into Moldova in an attempt to foment violence and spread disinformation and fear.
“The Kremlin believes that we are all for sale. That we are too small to resist. That we are not a country, only a territory,” the president declared, pointing to Russian involvement at the highest level.
“But Moldova is our home. And our home is not for sale.”
Pro-Russian parties have accused Sandu of trying to intimidate them – and sway the vote.
Sandu also called on supporters to come out and cast their ballots on Sunday in an election in which pro-Russian forces are set to shake the pro-EU status quo with the majority held by Sandu’s own Party of Action and Solidarity, PAS, seen at risk.
For her, a high turnout – especially among the diaspora – is key.
Moldova declared its independence as the USSR fell apart over 30 years ago, but it has a significant Russian-speaking population. The breakaway region of Transnistria, propped up by Moscow, is still home to a contingent of Russian troops.
For years Moscow’s influence has lingered in Moldovan politics.
But under President Sandu, the country has launched talks to join the EU and last year held a referendum in which voters chose to enshrine the goal of accession to the bloc in their constitution.
That ballot was the president’s initiative, an attempt to set Moldova’s EU path in stone.
In the end, the “yes” vote won by only a small margin of 50.4% to 49.5%. The referendum was mired by extensive evidence of Russian meddling – including cash being smuggled into the country to buy votes.
It’s thought that only a small percentage of the money being sent is intercepted – 10 to 15% of the total – and in Moldova, with its small population, every ballot counts.
“With 200,000 votes it’s possible to change everything: it’s enough to look at the EU referendum in October, which was decided by such a small margin,” Sergiu Panainte, deputy director of the German Marshall Fund in Bucharest, points out.
“The fines now for selling your vote are really big but there are still people willing to do it.”
Russia’s hybrid attacks are a large part of the problem for Sandu’s PAS, but not all of it.
Opponents accuse the government of not going far enough in tackling corruption, for example, and in Russian-speaking regions like Gagauzia, voters believe Moldova should engage with Moscow and not “antagonise” it.
President Sandu and her supporters strongly disagree.
In 2022, when Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she made a decisive turn towards Europe as the only guarantor of Moldova’s security and its sovereignty.
The latest police raids suggest Moscow hasn’t given up.
Separately, on Monday, Bloomberg news agency reported that it had seen documents outlining extensive Russian plans to seed unrest and warp the vote.
Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service has now issued its own statement, deliberately mirroring what was said by Moldova. It claims that European countries themselves are plotting the “blatant falsification” of the result on Sunday in order to provoke protests.
The SVR even warns that the EU could mount “an armed incursion and de-facto occupation” of Moldova, falsely claiming that the EU is deploying troops.
“This is Russia openly planning for Plan B,” Sergiu Panainte warns. “If PAS do get a majority, it means they [Russia] will resort to violence and staged attacks. This is the option they are preparing for.”
