War at the border, protests at home: pressure mounts on Moldova

Photo: Ion Gnatiuc

As dusk settled on the city, the demonstrators released flares of coloured smoke in red, blue and yellow, the colours of the Moldovan flag. What was less clear is whether the smoke signals their patriotism or a more troubling effort to obscure the real elements behind their shows of public dissent. One matter is plain enough: the protesters wanted Sandu out of power. Immediately.

Heat or eat

Sandu leads Moldova, the poor, ex-Soviet republic of 2.6 million people, at a time when ordinary citizens have ample reason to protest. In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moldova’s eastern neighbour. Europe has since experienced rapidly rising inflation, sky-high energy prices and a dramatic rise in the overall cost of living. Moldova’s own inflation is running at an extreme 31 per cent. The cyclical energy dilemmas well-known to other parts of the developing world – reduced, perhaps to crudeness, by the phrase “heat or eat” – have now come to Moldova, too.   

This economic situation is most difficult for Moldovan pensioners, whose meagre income, often set decades ago, falls far short of covering the costs of basic food, medicine and household bills. Moldova’s proximity to Ukraine has brought hundreds of thousands of refugees across the border, especially from hard-hit regions in Ukraine’s south and southwest. And the country’s working people of all ages fear a cold winter and the price, in cash or in sacrifice, that they must pay to keep warm.

If last year’s crisis for Chișinău began as a refugee intake crisis, the problem is evolving into a long-term accommodation crisis. Rent prices are rising for the city’s residents, while the state is grappling with serving Ukrainians who want to stay in the country on an indefinite basis. In January the total number of Ukrainian refugees remaining in Moldova surpassed 100,000 – the highest monthly figure since the start of the war, according to data from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The number marks a symbolic threshold that will translate into longer and greater difficulties for Moldovan public service providers.

Yet if anyone stands prepared to tackle Moldova’s challenges, it is likely Maia Sandu. A well-known figure in Moldovan politics for years, she is an elite even among other elites, with a fearsome professional record that belies her 50 years of age. She has a master’s degree from Harvard University. She worked as a World Bank economist during various periods from the 1990s to the 2010s, spending two years at the bank’s headquarters in Washington DC. In 2012, Sandu became Moldova’s education minister. She formed and led the PAS from 2016, running for, and losing, the presidential election that year. She served as a member of parliament and as Moldova’s prime minister in 2019.

In 2020 Sandu ran for and won the presidency, with a decisive 58 per cent of the national vote. Her platform centred on reform, anti-corruption and the long-term ambition of joining the European Union (EU). For the past two years she has sought to make good on her presidential agenda. Sandu’s profile has caused controversy among the electorate, before and since becoming president—and Moldova’s first female head of state. Sandu’s formidable political career, western education and work experience, and stated goals for reform have rattled parts of a Moldovan populace that have sought refuge in the ideas of conservatism and stability. Especially for older Moldovans, reform attempts recall the painful changes and volatility that the country endured after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Distrust and resentment

Thus the war has imposed new stress on different Moldovan generations. Further tension derives from Moldova’s official position of neutrality – as enshrined in the country’s constitution – amid a persistent regional conflagration. A small but disquieting example of this tension came in October, when Russian rockets, launched from the Black Sea and bound for Ukraine, violated Moldovan airspace. Later the same month, debris from a Russian rocket, shot down by Ukrainian air defence, landed in Moldovan territory, without causing any harm.

Other challenges to Moldovan neutrality, and to Sandu’s leadership, are much longer-standing. For three decades Russia has maintained about 1,500 soldiers in Transnistria, the sliver of a breakaway republic between Moldova’s eastern border and southwestern Ukraine along the Dniester River. Russia’s intentions regarding its Transnistrian forces, and the durability of Moldova’s neutrality, could provide signals as to the war’s progression as the conflict grinds toward the one-year mark.    

For Sandu, her myriad successes, and her patent ambition, would characterise to the average Moldovan a president who represents everything they are not. This divide between elites and the population breeds distrust and resentment, two all-too-common traits of political life in former Soviet countries.

Whose protest is it, anyway?

Back on Chișinău’s streets, most of the protesters were older, at or near retirement age. But working adults of all ages were present at the gatherings. The series of demonstrations persisted for months during autumn 2022, when fair weather and rising discontent brought thousands to the capital to make their voices heard. The protests continued, at varying sizes and intensity, through to the end of the year.

The anti-Sandu demonstrations are led by Ilan Shor, a controversial Moldovan politician-in-exile. Last autumn Shor’s political outfit, called the Shor Party, set up a tent city of protesters in the capital’s downtown. Some of these protesters have been paid, in certain cases repeatedly, to be there, as confirmed by a broad group of Moldovan and international media investigations. This fact of paid protests calls into question whether those protesting mean what they say, or whether they are in it for easy money; or both.

Nevertheless, Shor’s controversial status stems from his participation in a 2014 scheme involving massive bank fraud that extracted nearly one billion US dollars in Moldovan public funds from the country. Dubbed at the time “the theft of the century” by Moldovan and international media, the sum equalled about 11 per cent of Moldova’s GDP. In 2017 Shor was convicted in absentia of fraud by a Moldovan court. He now lives in Israel, where he was born and holds citizenship. Israel and Moldova do not share an extradition treaty, making it impossible for Moldova to arrange Shor’s return (and, presumably) imprisonment in the country.

Shor’s connections with Russian state agents are also well-known. In October, Shor was put under sanctions by the US Treasury Department, alongside more than 20 other individuals and entities active in Moldova. A press statement from the US agency was blunt, describing the sanctions as a response to “the Kremlin’s malign influence operations in Moldova”. The Shor Party did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Not all favour the EU path

For now, however, Shor continues his political activities from outside Moldova. He is using public money against the public interest, while sowing discontent among ordinary Moldovans and threatening the stability of Sandu’s democratically-elected government.

Shor and his party see in the war an opportunity to shake things up in their favour, gaining political sway in the process. Sandu’s government, in contrast, has acted forcefully to advance the country in a European direction, making good on her 2020 campaign promise. She has condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine and called for the restoration of peace.

Though Moldova may be neutral in a military sense, Sandu’s administration has aggressively pursued a European course. In early March, just days after the start of Russia’s invasion, Moldova’s prime minister, Natalia Gavrilița, submitted a request for EU accession. In June, the EU responded by granting Ukraine and Moldova formal candidacy for membership in the bloc. The move represents a decisive victory toward Sandu’s campaign promise of moving to European integration.

The voices of Moldovans who do not support integration with Europe, however, were loud and clear on the October afternoon when the photos for this story were taken. Moldovans at the event spoke to their current shared grievances. Their views hinted at the divisions that anti-Sandu elements like the Shor Party hope to further deepen.

 “We were in crisis even before the war,” said Daria Munteanu, 66, a pensioner from the village of Strășeni, northwest of Chișinău. Munteanu said she receives the equivalent of just 75 US dollars per month, which is not enough for her living expenses. She fears the war in Ukraine may spill over into Moldova.

Munteanu saw a connection between rising inflation and the profits of corporations that operate in Moldova. Her faith in the country’s authorities was badly damaged during the Shor fraud scandal, she said, and she sees the Sandu administration as similarly corrupt and detached from ordinary Moldovans. All of these reasons compelled her to join the protests. “We need to make these bandits respect us,” she said.

Similar concerns are shared among working-age adults. Evgenia Bors, 45, and her daughter, Daniela Gasper, 26, came to Chișinău from Furceni, a village north of the capital. Both would support a Shor presidency, the women said. And they, too, are concerned that the war could come to Moldova. Bors and Gasper said they resented how the protesters have been portrayed in local and foreign media – as poor provincials, frequently drunk in public, unconcerned with the actual politics, and whose main interest is to create a mess in the capital. “We’re not drunk, we’re not poor,” Bors said. “We’ve come peacefully, to protest peacefully.”

Photo: Ion Gnatiuc

Regional fall out

Even the youngest adult protesters – those who are about to enter the workforce – worry about the country’s prospects, and their own. Lilian Rose, an 18-year-old trainee auto mechanic, said he must join a family tradition of emigrating abroad in order to make a living. He plans to leave Moldova as soon as his traineeship is finished. Perhaps to join his mother, who works in Italy, or his father, who works in France, or someplace even farther afield. “I would like to go to America,” Rose said.

Rose complained that Moldova suffers from low wages, rising consumer prices and a general lack of opportunity for young adults like him. He also said that Moldova’s cycle of labour emigration is perpetual, as Moldovans begin working abroad, settle into a better life and then never return.

Chișinău’s autumn protests continued at a smaller scale into winter, when colder weather kept all but the most ardent from demonstrating publicly. The Sandu government still stands, and the protesters’ calls for the dismantling of the current government never seemed to pose a substantial threat to the current administration.

But if the protests continue, if the Shor Party and other anti-government actors keep up their resistance – and, most of all, if Russia’s war in Ukraine continues well into 2023 – then the possibility of renewed protests in Chișinău cannot be ruled out.

Thus Moldova and the streets of its capital remain places to watch. The country stands as a prime example of the Ukraine war’s regional fallout and its long-term effects that extend well beyond the zones of conflict. The longevity of Moldovan discontent, and the disruptive effects of exiled politicians who are asking for and receiving support from Russian partners, are themes to follow closely in 2023. Ordinary Moldovans will no doubt be watching, too.

William Fleeson is a writer and journalist. A native and resident of Washington, DC, his writing has appeared in BBC Travel, National Geographic, Newsweek, the Washington Independent Review of Books and elsewhere. His work has been nominated, most recently, for The Best American Essays anthology.

Ilan Shor, Maia Sandu, Moldova, Russia, Russian war against tomorrow