Many international observers anticipated that Russia would move to exploit the anti-government protests in Moldova in order to (as the assumptions went) “destabilize Moldova’s pro-Europe government,” “halt and derail Moldova’s European course,” or even stage a “Maidan in reverse” in Chisinau. The Kremlin was, at a minimum, expected to exacerbate Moldova’s disorders through propaganda and covert interference, leading perhaps to full-scale political or even strategic Russian exploitation of Moldova’s crisis. The specter of Ukraine’s Donbas partly inspired such predictions with regard to Moldova.
Yet, after several weeks of anti-government protests (and an even longer period of non-governance) in Chisinau, those …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation