The union with Romania is the most plausible scenario for the Republic of Moldova’s future. According to the director of the Institute for Public Policy Arcadie Barbăroșie, the Republic of Moldova does not have own resources to survive in the long run and the union with Romania is the only solution. In a public debate staged by IPN, the IPP director said the war in Ukraine can lasts for several years and in Moldova there will always be people nostalgic for the USSR, who will justify this war and will support Russia in its barbarous attempts to restore the old borders.
According to Arcadie Barbăroșie, opinion polls show that a part of the Moldovans justify Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and consider that the Russian army defends Donbas and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Also, a considerable part of society believes that NATO and the Western states should not help Kiev in this war.
“The first war in which Russia emerged victorious was that against the Republic of Moldova. This war was followed by the war against Georgia of 2008, the war of 2014 as a result of which Crimea was occupied and the war of 2022. In polls, 11% of the responders answered affirmatively the question, if Ukraine should be helped by NATO in this war. 33% of the respondents said NATO and the Western countries supplied Ukraine with armament and this is enough. In total, 44% of the respondents are in favor of supporting Ukraine or consider NATO should intervene. At the same time, 31% of those polled said Ukraine should be left alone, while over 20% of the respondents didn’t provide an answer. These are answers to the question, if the Moldovans are nostalgic for the Soviet period or not,” said the IPP director.
He noted there are a number of scenarios regarding the evolution of the war in Ukraine. Arcadie Barbăroșie expressed his conviction that Ukraine will win the fight against Russia even if it will sustain considerable loses in a war of attrition.
“Russia in Moldova has a number of very powerful sources of information through which is shapes the opinion of the population that supports it. But there are also nostalgic persons who, even if they hadn’t had sources of information, would have anyway said it’s good that Russia attacked Ukraine. The first scenario is that Ukraine will win the war started by Russia. Ukraine will stop when the borders of 1991 are restored or will stop after it concedes a part of the territories, but will not abandon Crimea as Crimea is very important for them. There is also the scenario according to which the war will continue and Russia will further launch strikes against Ukraine. So, it is a war that will continue for several years,” stated Arcadie Barbăroșie.
In the long run, the union with Romania is the only method for Moldova to develop and make progress. In the absence of own resources and when Moldova survives only with loans, the reunion with Romania will occur in a predictable future.
“In the Republic of Moldova, the nostalgic for the Soviet Union will continue to exist, but I think that the Republic of Moldova will ultimately unite with Romania as I do not see what resources the Republic of Moldova can base its existence on. Most of our young people go to study abroad after they graduate from the lyceum,” stated the IPP director.
The public debate entitled “Evolution of Russo-Ukrainian war and its influence on the phenomenon of nostalgia for the USSR” was the ninth installment of IPN’s project “100 years of USSR and 31 years without USSR: Nostalgia for Chimeras”, which is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
