Is Moldova Putin's Next Target?

A Pro-Western Government Fends off Destabilization Efforts

Other than Ukraine itself, no country has been more deeply impacted by Russia's invasion than Moldova.

Moldova is a small country that borders Ukraine. It is among the poorest in Europe, yet it has absorbed more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other country in the world. Moldova is currently governed by a stridently pro-European ruling party, much to the apparent chagrin of Russia which is sponsoring a number of destabilization efforts to undermine President Maia Sandu.

This includes sharply restricting Moldova’s access to gas and electrity, which in turn has caused inflation to soar over 30%. Meanwhile, a fugitive pro-Russian oligarch is fomenting regular street protests.

There is a lot to unpack and to that end, joining me from Moldova's capital is journalist Paula Erizanu.  We kick off discussing destabilization efforts by the Kremlin, before having a wider discussion of the ways in which Moldova has been impacted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

To listen to this episode on your favorite podcast listening app, go here.

Transcript below

Mark Leon Goldberg [00:03:45] So it seems like it's been a chaotic couple of weeks on the streets of Chisinau. Can you explain what or who is behind this most recent pro-Russian protest? 

Paula Erizanu [00:03:56] Yes, It's not just been a few weeks of protests. We've had these protests going on since autumn. They are organized by the Shoe Party, which is a Kremlin tied party. Ilan Shor is an oligarch. He was found guilty for money laundering and being involved in this famous billion dollar theft that bankrupted three of Moldova's banks in 2014. His trial is ongoing. He hasn't had his final sentence yet. In any case, in order to avoid being arrested, he left for Israel, where he has been hiding for some time now. But meanwhile, his people here are trying to destabilize the situation on the ground in order to prevent the reform of the judiciary from happening there. Reform of the judiciary was the key reform promised by the ruling party when they came into power. This was before the war. And so the anti-corruption kind of agenda was the main thing on people's minds at that time. 

Mark Leon Goldberg [00:05:13] It seems that this probably corrupt oligarch wants to disrupt the process of reforming the judiciary so as to avoid conviction for his likely corruption? 

Paula Erizanu [00:05:27] Yes. Yes. And so in order to do that, he has allied with the Kremlin, which is also unhappy about Moldova's pro-European stance and anti-Russian invasion stance. 

Mark Leon Goldberg [00:05:43] So they have a common political foe. The pro-EU, pro-Western Moldovan government is seen as  an obstacle to the Kremlin and a potential threat to Shor himself. And so Shor has aligned with the Kremlin? 

Paula Erizanu [00:06:01] Exactly. 

Mark Leon Goldberg [00:06:02] But it's my understanding that Shor's political party is relatively fringe, right? It only has a tiny number of seats in the Moldovan parliament. 

Paula Erizanu [00:06:11] Yeah, they only have six out of 101 seats, but the rating is a bit higher at the moment in recent polls than it was when we had our last parliamentary elections. They are a loud minority party — and they're trying to stir chaos by bringing people on the streets and also trying to provoke violence and kind of keep authorities busy so that they don't have time to actually focus on the reforms they need to undertake. 

Mark Leon Goldberg [00:06:44] So the protests thus far, have they been particularly violent or just sort of loud and disruptive? 

Paula Erizanu [00:06:52] They have been disruptive. So we have had protests even today and yesterday blocking streets. They really wanted to kind of make people annoyed and create this kind of chaos. But we have also had lots of kind of false bomb blasts, hundreds of them, especially last summer across the airport as well as across public institutions. And there were four such bomb alerts on Sunday as well, the same day as the big protests that were organized. And then there's also a disinformation operation going at the moment which has intensified over the past few months. And there were plans of violence, according to the Moldovan government.

So on Sunday, in addition to the protests or just before them, we also had a press conference given by the Moldovan head of the police, who in a kind of unprecedented gesture of transparency, if I may express myself like that, shared with the public and with journalists the operation that the Moldovan police has worked on, which has basically involved an undercover agent who worked with Russian secret agents in order to learn and kind of deconstruct their plan, where they were trying to create ten groups of 5 to 10 men with either sports training or a criminal record. And they were trying to get these groups to break police cordons and also to generate violence. In exchange for the services, they would have received $10,000. 

Mark Leon Goldberg [00:08:50] And so it was the day of the protest, right, that the Moldovan police announced this arrest and disruption of what they claimed to be a planned, violent, almost insurrection orchestrated by a handful of people against key targets around Chisinau?

Paula Erizanu [00:09:13] Yeah. And they detained seven people, seven leaders. And they said that they're working with dozens of others who are providing them with information. And during those protests, there were minor kind of incidents of violence where truly the crowd was trying to break the police cordon as the shore party members were encouraging the crowd to break the police cordon and move switch location. So we've seen inclinations towards the plan that was revealed by the police. But it looked like the police did a good job in maintaining public order.