The greatest danger for Moldova comes from the disinformation campaigns targeting the population, said the political pundit Igor Boțan when asked if a pact similar to that of Ribbentrop-Molotov could represent a threat to Moldova’s independence.

During an IPN debate on Monday, Boțan noted that the pro-Russian forces use huge financial sources to “wage a political struggle to misinform Moldovans”. “The good part is that the European Union finally understood that Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and possibly Armenia, too, should not be left in the gray zone”, he added.

According to Igor Boțan, during a conference in Davos, a high representative of the European Union said that it would be a big mistake for Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, which want to break away from the former Soviet space, to be left in the gray area. If they embrace the values ​​of the European Union, they should be helped to complete this journey to get European Union membership, obviously when they satisfy the criteria and standards of the European Union.

The political pundit emphasized that the ambitions of the Russian Federation, which is “driven by revisionism”, must also be taken into account. This became public when Russian President Vladimir Putin in the summer of 2020, on the occasion of an anniversary related to the victory over Nazi Germany, in an American publication justified the German revanchism that was the basis of the Second World War, accusing European states of humiliating Germany after World War I.

Igor Boțan declared that, in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the narratives promoted by the Russian authorities, including President Vladimir Putin, who calls Ukraine “anti-Russia”, matter for the Republic of Moldova. The expert went on by noting that prominent members of the ruling party United Russia also say very clearly that Ukraine and Ukrainians should not exist. “In these circumstances, it is certain that if President Putin, as he said publicly, is in the position of Peter the Great who gathers the territories he considers Russian and mentions that Russia’s borders do not end anywhere, we as citizens of the Republic of Moldova, the former part of the Soviet Empire, we must consider ourselves threatened”, concluded Igor Boțan.

This was the 41st installment of the Impact of History Series, run by IPN with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.