Why Moldova Matters - End The War in Ukraine Now
You probably don’t spend a lot of time worrying about Moldova. It is entirely likely you cannot find Moldova on a map. It is a very small country in Eastern Europe and not typically in the headlines.
Unfortunately, for the whole world, though, Moldova is suddenly very important, and what is happening there suggests we continue to stumble down the road to another World War.
The government of Moldova just collapsed. Moldova is Europe’s poorest nation. It was already struggling to deal with political and economic problems before Russia invaded Ukraine, and the war in Ukraine has produced ripple effects that are crushing the nation. Moldova is being hammered by inflation, high energy prices, unemployment, a refugee crisis, and continuing Russian threats of direct intervention.
Two days ago the Russians fired a volley of missiles at Ukraine. They sent those missiles straight through Moldovan airspace without making any pretense of requesting permission or providing notice. The message was clear. Moldova is a small country. Russia will do what it likes, and if the Moldovans don’t like it then the next step might be direct Russian attacks on targets inside Moldova.
Moldova shares a 750-mile border with Ukraine. It is already on the precipice. Russian troops occupy Transnistria a disputed border region between Moldova and Ukraine. The threat is not theoretical. It is immediate.
In a stark warning on Thursday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian intelligence had uncovered a Russian plan to "destroy" Moldova.
"These documents show who, when and how Russia is going to break democracy of Moldova and establish control," he told EU leaders at a summit in Brussels. "I immediately warned Moldova about these threats," he added.
Moldovan intelligence services stated later that they had also identified "subversive activities" aimed at "undermining the state of the Republic of Moldova, destabilizing and violating public order."
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of trying to turn Moldova against Russia as he claimed it had already done with Ukraine. Lavrov suggested that Moldova was the next Ukraine and that it was being absorbed into an anti-Russian alliance. Lavrov demanded that Moldova negotiate with separatists in Transnistria and suggested Russian military action against Moldova might be justified if Moldova did not do as the Kremlin directed.
The Russian military has stated that it intends to link Transnistria to the portions of Ukraine it currently occupies suggesting that offensive action against Moldova directly could be in the offing. Such action would be in conjunction with Russian efforts to seize Ukrainian territory along the Black Sea.
The Russian threat of direct military action is being made against the backdrop of longstanding Russian intelligence operations designed to destabilize the Moldovan government. The Washington Post recently reported that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has been plotting to subvert the pro-Western government of Moldova. According to the Post, the FSB has funneled tens of millions of dollars into Moldova and recruited a network of Moldovan politicians to do Moscow’s bidding. Among other things, members of this network have organized protests against the Moldovan government designed to topple it and replace it with one that will answer to Vladimir Putin.
Pro-Russian TV channels within Moldova amplify the FSB’s message. Last week the United States imposed sanctions on a long list of organizations and individuals designated as working inside Moldova to spread unrest at the behest of Moscow.
Vladimir Putin is a thug and a relic of the Cold War. His ultimate fantasy is to reconstitute as much of the old Soviet Union as he possibly can. His invasion of Ukraine was brutal and unjustified, and the fact that it has turned into a military disaster for Moscow is a positive thing for all of Europe and world peace in general.
That does not mean that all of Russia’s concerns that lie behind the decision to invade Ukraine are invalid or unreasonable. NATO was formed after the Second World War as a defensive alliance. At that point, Soviet troops were stationed all across Eastern Europe. NATO planners were focused on attempting to stop massive Russian armored forces and their Warsaw Pact allies from overrunning all of Western Europe. It was considered a distinct possibility that the Soviets could seize Paris and be at the English Channel within days of an attack executed from a standing start.
The world in which NATO was formed no longer exists. The Eastern European nations that formed the Warsaw Pact are now firmly in NATO’s camp. Germany is reunited. Russia is a rump state. Many of the old Soviet republics are now independent nations.
And, yet, even as the threat from Moscow has receded NATO has continued to push east ever closer to Moscow. From Putin’s perspective, what may once have been a defensive alliance has now morphed into an offensive entity focused on toppling his regime and dominating the Eurasian landmass. In short, for Moscow NATO is increasingly an existential threat.
A competent administration in Washington would recognize all this and act accordingly. It would catalog American national interests and see that continuing to push Moscow into a corner and pour jet fuel on the war in Ukraine may have catastrophic consequences. It would focus its efforts now on winding down the war, negotiating a peace deal, and restoring stability in Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately for us, there is no competent administration in Washington and no sign of a coherent strategy for bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. Instead, we revel in seemingly endless announcements of new arms deliveries to Kyiv and the massive profits Raytheon and other huge defense contractors are making. It all seems fun and painless. We make the money and take the credit and others do the dying.
Putin is cornered and his military is bleeding to death in Ukraine. His planned blitzkrieg has turned into soul-sucking trench warfare. He is casting about and increasingly short of options. His actions in Moldova should just how dire the situation is from his perspective and how increasingly everything looks like a threat.
Moldova is a small country but it lies in a critical location. Putin’s increasing focus on toppling its government shows just how desperate he is becoming. Our focus must be not on countering a Russian move into Moldova but on bringing the broader conflict to an end before that happens.
Once this war begins to spread it may very well suck in all of Europe before it ends. That serves no one’s purpose. That’s why Moldova matters.
Cling to Jesus Moldova, even in America that is all we have. Perhaps the world is in the death throes of the Church age. Be ready.