#312: Big Loss for Putin: Moldova Votes Pro EU

We just witnessed a major loss for Putin as Maia Sandu’s party just won elections in Moldova.

If you’ve been a little nervous in the last days about the Moldovan election, good news. The pro-EU party led by Maia Sandu won the parliamentary elections with what seems like an absolute majority.

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This is huge. The projections were around 30% and she probably got over 50%.

So this happened against the backdrop of massive Russian propaganda, the continued occupation of a part of Moldova as Transnistria or Pridnestrovie, and alleged attempts at buying of parts of the population by Russia.

Russia really does not want Moldova to be independent, or let’s say Putin’s Russia doesn’t want to. Putin here has again attempted to strengthen a beachhead against Europe, NATO and Ukraine as he has already done in Georgia.

Moldova is one of his favorite targets because it’s a very poor country. It has kind of been fighting for its own existence. It used to be, or parts of it used to be, part of Romania. Parts of it have an autonomous region of Gagauzia which Putin really addresses as a voting block, potential voting block. And then this separation between Moldova proper and Transnistria—really this is one of the most critical countries in Europe that’s right on the edge of being peeled off from the EU.

I understand that a lot of people in Moldova are frustrated because the country is not rich. A lot of young Moldovans have left to work abroad and none of this helps the country. Many Moldovans also probably know that EU accession means short-term pain but long-term gain.

I’m from Eastern Europe. I’m from East Germany. I’ve seen what happens after reintegration into Europe, after in Germany’s case entering West Germany and then the EU. But I’ve witnessed things in former Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other parts of what used to be Soviet-occupied Europe.

And yes, the transformation is extreme. The changes will be extreme. The worst arguably may already have happened, and EU membership will eventually—may take a little bit of time—create a better path to prosperity.

Aligning with Russia may have made sense for some people who say, “Look, we’ve been part of the Soviet Union. We know how this works. The Soviets financed us because we were kind of an outlier and they wanted us to look best against the West.”

And so I can’t really blame people for being seduced into that position, but I must say the population of Moldova really surprised me because they saw through this game. They saw through that Putin just is gobbling up territory without caring about people. He pretends to care about Russian speakers in Ukraine while bombing them every day and killing them. He pretends that Ukraine is a brother nation while killing them. That’s not the brother you want. That’s not the ally you want.

The EU isn’t perfect. The EU is, in spite of it all though, honestly interested—and I’m saying this maybe in all my naivete but I can say this also as a witness—the EU is honestly interested in the welfare of Moldova. And as part of the EU, Moldova will have an actual voice within the EU, small as it may be. But in the Russian world it wouldn’t have any voice.

But the very fact that Maia Sandu won and Putin lost democratically demonstrates certain things.

First, democracy is not lost. We are living in a time where many people say, “Oh, democracy has failed and no one wants it and you know it’s too complicated. It doesn’t produce results. It’s too sluggish and a strongman would be better because then we could get things done.” All of this is false of course.

Yeah, strongmen can get things done quickly, superficially, but it’s about making sustainable decisions. Yeah, democracies sometimes can be a little bit faster. But you know the reason things don’t move as fast in a democracy is because you actually have to listen to constituencies.

You want the Chinese model where decisions are just made? Well, if your house is in the way, if your community, your region is in the way of some major developments, you don’t even have a chance of speaking up. You don’t get anything, or pittance, and say goodbye to your environment too. So the reason democratic countries sometimes seem sluggish, sometimes seem painfully slow in development, is oftentimes for a good reason.

Some improvement might be helpful, but anyway, this vote shows people have seen through Putin’s game.

Second, the EU is not lost. Well, in a cynical moment, I thank the United Kingdom every day for Brexit, having demonstrated how much better it would have been for Britain to stay in the EU. Brexit has showed that disentangling from Europe is much more complicated than you thought, also that it’s not a one-time thing. It’s a continuing prospect, and that being outside the EU may make you feel better, but it doesn’t give you the same benefits.

And Moldova just voting in a majority for being part of the EU, for moving ahead with that, shows that the EU still is an attractive proposition. The EU still has work to do. It’s not perfect, but that helps.

Third, the West still is attractive. We’ve seen an attempt at creating this illusion that there can be an alternative world. I mean BRICS or CRINKS or whatever have been trying to say no no no, we can create an alternative world to the West.

How illusionary that is is shown that China really depends on trade with the West. The West depends on China too. Same with India. There is no way in our already globalized world to undo a lot of what has happened without major pain.

There may be some merit to disentangling from each other a little bit as the pandemic has shown. And you can’t outsource everything. You can’t just say, “Well you know, everything is made now only in one country and then we all import it.” That doesn’t work either.

But this idea that somehow the current world order is unipolar or unfair to the rest of the world—that isn’t helpful. People who say that may forget how painful the separation of the world was during the Cold War. Do we want to go back to that? I don’t think so. And as small as Moldova is, it proved a principle: betting on the West is a safer bet than on Putin.

And here fourth, and now most of all, Putin is weak. He is losing. His support is crumbling. His soft power is disappearing. It’s not gone completely, but it is severely in trouble.

Trump has moved to rhetorically support Ukraine. Even JD Vance is now supporting Tomahawk missiles for Europe and Ukraine eventually. Why is that? Because we have all seen, to many people’s annoyance, how Trump really desperately tried to get on Putin’s good side. How he thought having a special relationship with Putin would have made it possible to get a bad peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. A bad deal, but still a peace deal.

No. No matter how much Trump denigrated himself, begged basically—well, that many people saw it that way—it didn’t work. His strategy of trying to appease Putin and saying, “Look, we’re going to offer you this deal. Ukraine doesn’t like it. We’re even making fun of Zelenskyy. We’re even denigrating Zelenskyy, the victim, in order for you to come to the table and sign a deal.” No.

Yes, Putin is doubling down. Lavrov is doubling down. Peskov is doubling down. There is no desire in Russia for peace. At the same time, they’re not winning in Ukraine. They’re destroying, but they’re not winning. These are two different things.

What is Russia winning by destroying, by killing? Ukraine is not going anywhere. The Russian plan may be like in Syria to completely bomb out the people and then they have no choice. But Ukraine is much bigger. It is physically the biggest country in the entirety of Europe. Russia—the European part of course is bigger—but Russia is Eurasian, not just merely European. But if you just look at Europe, Ukraine is the biggest country physically.

Ukraine before the war was a major weapons manufacturer. Ukraine within the Soviet Union apparently was kind of the brains of the Soviet system. Ukraine also fought in World War II at the forefront as part of the Soviet Union.

We have all been underestimating Ukraine. Initially I even did. But the more you learn, the more you see, the more you see is that Russia is not winning.

Ukraine is hitting Russian oil and gas supplies and infrastructure. Ukraine now has its own long-range weapons. And people are noticing. Countries are noticing.

Russia needs the help of North Korea. If nothing convinces those people who think Russia’s winning, North Korea is needed for Russia to fight. China has not signed on to the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. All those friends that Russia allegedly has all demand special deals from Russia. They’re milking Russia dry.

Even the Europeans who still get oil and gas from Russia, annoyingly so, do so only because they have no other choice.

Russia is, as we’ve seen in the last days, trying to provoke a reaction from the West. We’ve seen drones. We’ve seen all kinds of other so-called hybrid attacks. Russia is at war against the West.

The West doesn’t need to go full war. The West just needs to hold on. Because Putin cannot afford a full war against the West. He knows that. He can only provoke. He can only get us to do something foolish or even rash.

So he can’t afford war against the West. He is not winning in Ukraine. He’s just destroying. And all we have to do, all Ukraine has to do is carry on. Do what we’re already doing, doubling down on that and wait—not wait, but continue doing that.

But we don’t have to do much more because Russia is self-destroying itself right now. Putin is destroying Russia.

And the win in Moldova by the pro-EU forces is proof of that. Even in the poorest country in Europe which has really been struggling between EU and Russia, Putin’s narrative has failed. Putin’s seduction is failing.

We can’t let the ball drop. We must continue in the West to actually deliver on what we promise. But this was huge. This tiny country has just showed that you can stand up to Russia.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!