The swift accession of the European Union is the alternative to the “Russian world” for Moldova and Ukraine. The way in which Russia wants to unite the chains of the Russian empire, starting with the 15th century up to now, cannot be accepted, the standing expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan stated in a public debate hosted by IPN News Agency.

Igor Boțan noted that after the Soviet Empire dismembered and the Communist bloc collapsed, the European Union made an offer to the countries of Central Europe, while the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and the countries of South Caucasus remained in the gray area that the EU for a period treated as the area of joint responsibility of the European Union and the Russian Federation. But Russia has never agreed with this.

Currently, after Russian invaded Ukraine, the EU changed its attitude and the applications for EU membership filed by Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia were accepted, which shows that the EU, in principle, wants these states to leave the gray area. If they remain in this area, they will generate negative consequences, such as the war of August 2008 against Georgia and the war started by Russia against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Such developments will never end if these states do not have clearly defined borders, noted Igor Boțan.

According to the expert, in the works published by one of the former advisers to Vladimir Putin, it is mentioned the fourth phase of the Russian empire. The first phase started with the rule of Ivan III. The second phase is that of the Romanovs, the third – of the Bolshevik-Communists, while the fourth – of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is building the so-called “durable state”. The Russian president does not come with a fixed imperial idea, as the Orthodox Idea of the Tsarist Empire, but makes this junction between the three imperial chains. “These actions became the cause of the situation witnessed now in our region,” said Igor Boțan.

“We are directly covered by this ideology that says the time is now similar to that of 1918, when Russia took back its territories by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, after the Cold War. It notes that Russia was beaten in World War III, which is the Cold War, and now wants its territories back.”

The public debate entitled “Fate of peripheries of empires. Quo vadis, Moldova?” was the seventh installment of IPN’s project “Impact of the Past on Confidence and Peace Building Processes” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.