The leaders of Germany, France and Poland have visited Moldova on its independence day and pledged to help the country resist alleged Russian attempts to destabilise it before potentially pivotal elections late next month.
“No day passes in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in this country without massive hybrid attacks by Russia. And the target is Moldova’s democracy, both online and offline. The target is this free, democratic society,” German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday in Chisinau.
Standing with French president Emmanuel Macron, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk and Moldovan president Maia Sandu, Mr Merz accused Russia of using disinformation, cyber attacks and other tools to boost pro-Kremlin politicians in a country that became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
He said Moldova’s independence day “was not a day of celebration” for Russian president Vladimir Putin, recalling how the former KGB officer described the demise of the Soviet empire as the “greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century.”
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“He wants to turn back time and draw Moldova back into the Russian sphere of influence,” said Mr Merz. “Day in, day out, Russia has been relentlessly trying to undermine freedom, prosperity and peace in Moldova, to disrupt it and call it into question.”
Ms Sandu secured re-election last year in a hard-fought run-off against a challenger backed by pro-Russian parties, and a referendum on enshrining Moldova’s European Union membership ambitions in its constitution was won only narrowly by the “yes” vote.
Moldova accused Russia and pro-Kremlin Moldovan businessmen of spending tens of millions of euro on bribing people to vote against Ms Sandu and on other schemes to skew the results in favour of her rivals.
Tension continues to crackle between Chisinau and Moscow, following a court decision this month to jail a pro-Kremlin regional governor in Moldova for seven years for channelling Russian funds to a political party that is now banned.
Yevgenia Gutsul, her supporters in the Gagauzia region and Russian officials say she is the victim of a campaign to silence Moldovan voices that oppose Ms Sandu’s pro-western stance.
Police in Moldova said pro-Russian activists were detained on Wednesday as they planned to block the cars of the visiting leaders as they travelled from Chisinau airport to the city centre.
“Without the European Union, Moldova remains trapped in the past. We feel this with every bomb that is launched over our neighbouring country,” Ms Sandu said in reference to Ukraine.
“Europe means freedom and peace. Putin’s Russia means war and death. Moldovans have chosen the current direction, the European path ... but we all know that independence is not something guaranteed. It depends on the choices we make.”
The three visiting leaders praised Moldova’s resistance to Russian pressure and its push to implement reforms that are part of the EU candidate country’s bid to join the bloc.
They also denied Kremlin claims – repeated by pro-Moscow politicians in Moldova – that Europe and Kyiv were blocking efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
“The Kremlin’s propaganda tells us that Europeans want to prolong the war and that the European Union oppresses people. These are lies. Unlike Russia, the European Union threatens no one and respects everyone’s sovereignty,” said Mr Macron.
Mr Merz added: “Like you, we want to see the weapons in Ukraine fall silent ... But not at any cost. We don’t want to see the capitulation of Ukraine ... Such a capitulation would only mean buying time for Russia, which Putin would use to prepare for the next war. This is why we want and need a lasting peace.”
