Starting the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin's Russia believed it would emerge victorious in a few weeks. The Republic of Moldova was to become the next easy-to-reach target. But Ukraine resisted and turned upside down the imperialist project to restore the empire, based on the concept of the so-called Russian world. Forced to give up, at least for now, a military invasion, Russia intensified the hybrid war against the Republic of Moldova to the maximum, applying a complex strategy, based on the combination of economic, political, informational and social means, to destabilize and influence the Moldovan state. This approach is part of a broader tactic by Russia in the Eastern European region, used to expand its influence over former Soviet republics.
Among the components of Russia's hybrid war against the Republic of Moldova, the economic pressure actions have a special place. Using Moldova's economic dependence on the Russian market, a dependence inherited from the Soviet colonial past and criminally preserved by most of the governments in Chisinau in the post-Soviet period, Moscow resorted without hesitation to embargoes on Moldovan exports, especially on agricultural products and wines. Just as it used the tactic of manipulating the prices of gas and other energy resources as levers of political influence. Last but not least, it provided economic support to the separatist region of Transnistria in order to weaken the authority of the central government in Chisinau.
Supporting separatist movements has always been Moscow's preferred strategy in keeping the Republic of Moldova in its sphere of influence. For over 30 years, Transnistria has been a key region in this strategy of Russia, which was achieved by keeping the Transnistrian conflict frozen in order to limit Moldova's capacity to reorient itself towards European institutions. The same purpose is served by the support for pro-Russian groups in Gagauzia, another region of the Republic of Moldova with a separatist background, in order to undermine internal stability and slow down the European integration process.
However, Moscow's overuse of economic blackmail, through the imposition of endless trade embargoes, over the years caused an opposite effect to the expected one. The Republic of Moldova reoriented its exports to European markets, even if this reorientation was slow and implied major economic costs. However, in the last instance, Moldovan exports got rid of the suffocating dependence on the Russian market and the competitiveness of the exported Moldovan products increased exponentially, adapting to the high-quality standards of the European markets. Only the energy sector continues to keep the Republic of Moldova captive to the Russian economic blackmail.
The war in Ukraine, however, radically changed the components of the problem in the energy sector as well. To Moscow's astonishment, the Republic of Moldova, helped enormously by Romania and its partners in the EU, became independent from Russia’s Gazprom and started to procure all the necessary volumes of gas from alternative sources.
It is true that the right bank of the Nistru remained heavily dependent on the supply of electricity produced by the Kuchurgan power plant, which until yesterday operated on Russian gas that was not paid for by the separatist regime in Tiraspol. But on the same dimension, Chisinau is preparing to obtain energy immunity thanks to the connections with the Romanian and European electricity systems under construction. This perspective made Moscow to step up its actions to destabilize the Republic of Moldova through other procedures of hybrid war, different from the purely economic ones.
For the Republic of Moldova, the war in Ukraine has manifested itself in an unprecedented intensification of propaganda and disinformation operated by Russian media and social networking sites in order to spread narratives favorable to the Kremlin and to polarize Moldovan public opinion. The focus was on promoting an anti-Romanian, anti-European and anti-NATO discourse, trying to erode the support for European integration of the majority of Moldovan citizens. With particular intensity, pro-Western leaders have been discredited and pro-Russian politicians and parties in the Republic of Moldova have been promoted.
The Russian intelligence services’ interference in the political life of the Republic of Moldova has become exhaustive. Political manipulation, by injecting enormous financial resources into supporting political parties and organizations that promote Russian interests, has taken on proportions that were never seen before.
They resorted to illegal financing of election campaigns and pro-Russian politicians, to the employment, through criminal procedures, of political corruption in elections through disinformation and influencing the democratic process in order to divert it to the benefit of the Kremlin's interests. Totalitarian techniques were practiced to influence the Moldovan diaspora in Russia in order to exert pressure on the government in Chisinau and to radically thwart the Moldovan electoral process.
Russia's strategic objectives in promoting hybrid warfare in the Republic of Moldova are aimed at preventing the Moldovan state from joining the European Union and, in perspective, NATO, and also at keeping it in the Russian sphere of influence. The importance of the case of the Republic of Moldova lies in creating a precedent for other states in the region that aspire to independence from Moscow. For this reason, the Kremlin is massively involved in the destabilization of the Republic of Moldova, through the procedures of hybrid war, allocating important resources, including financial ones, to achieve its goals.
The results of the pro-Europe referendum of last autumn, as well as of the presidential election, which within the state failed in terms of the support for the European course, point to the efficiency of Moscow's policies in destabilizing Moldovan society. The situation was saved by the vote of the Moldovan diaspora in the West, but the result achieved inside the Republic of Moldova significantly undermines the optimism of Europeanists ahead of this year's parliamentary elections. These elections are considered crucial for the future of the Moldovan state, especially in the context of the relations with Russia and the European path.
The perpetuation of the pro-European government for another electoral cycle will certainly give irreversibility to the European orientation of the Republic of Moldova and will contribute to its definitive detachment from Russia's influence.
This perspective is fully comprehended by the strategists from the Kremlin, who throw all the resources at hand in the fight for the domination of this in the Republic of Moldova, without exception. It went so far as to sacrifice separatist Transnistria, which was disconnected from Russian gas that until yesterday was supplied without any payment to Tiraspol, in order to cause an energy crisis coupled with a humanitarian one and growing, in this way, the citizens’ dissatisfaction with the current government in Chisinau.
The possibility that Moscow will boost the process of Transnistria's formal reintegration into the Republic of Moldova, with the aim of bringing Transnistrian voters, contaminated for more than thirty years by pro-Russian propaganda, to the polls, thus influencing the results of the upcoming parliamentary elections, is not excluded either. In this connection, the 2025 parliamentary elections are seen as a last major opportunity for Moscow to reassert its influence in the Republic of Moldova and to slow down or even stop the pro-European orientation of the Moldovan state.
Under these conditions, it is essential that the pro-European authorities and civil society be vigilant and ensure a free and fair electoral process in the upcoming parliamentary elections, resistant to the destabilizing foreign influences.
Russia's hybrid war against Moldova remains a major challenge, but the creation of preconditions for the massive mobilization of pro-European forces internally, and also of international support, provides Chisinau with the necessary resources to resist the pressure exerted by Russia, ensuring the irreversibility of the European orientation of the Republic of Moldova.
