Make Moldova great again: Putin’s face-saving prize

Imagine you are Vladimir Putin. In addition to harboring existential angst about being short (5’ 6”) and aging (turning 71 in October), your mood has darkened over the past year. The invasion of Ukraine, launched last February, is not going particularly well. The number of Russian forces killed and wounded reportedly is approaching 200,000, putting a crimp on recruiting and raising fears of mutinies and popular backlash. Your military’s weapons and ammunition stockpiles are dwindling fast. 

Economic sanctions imposed by Western adversaries are beginning to impact the economy, driving up prices and fueling inflation. International business is declining, and some of the oligarchs with whom you’ve been bound in a symbiotic, mutually enriching embrace are peeling away, threatening to expose the corruption at the heart of your rule. Geopolitically, your triumphant Reconquista has succeeded only in strengthening NATO, with Finland in, Sweden set to join and eventual Ukrainian membership not out of the question, uniting the European Union (whose states have formed a European Defense Agency and moved to wean themselves from Russian oil), and earned repeated United Nations and other international opprobrium.

The conflict could grind on for years, ultimately producing — absent the West’s direct involvement or provision of game-changing offensive weapons to Kyiv — a victory won not through battlefield prowess or tactical brilliance but mere attrition. Joseph Stalin spun the staggeringly sanguinary World War II slugfest with Germany as the ultimate test of the Soviet Union’s resilience. But the USSR’s 1992 collapse — hastened, celebrated and exploited by Washington — was what motivated you to invade Ukraine in the first place. 

What you sought was confirmation that the old order was not consigned to the ash heap of history, a romp akin to the 2008 war with Georgia, a two-month-long cakewalk like the 2014 annexation of Crimea. What you got was trench warfare, an exceptional Ukrainian fighting force with historic will, and … a stalemate. Should you consider using tactical nuclear weapons? Yes, but only if your regime’s survival is threatened, and you’re nowhere near that point (yet). What you really need right now is an easy, high-profile win. Something to boost morale at home and leave your adversaries dazed and confused. Something that causes enough consternation in the U.S. Congress that Joe Biden will have to cut Volodymyr Zelensky loose.

The sound of silence

So, you look around. What’s available, what’s attainable? How about Moldova? Being a former intelligence officer and clever neo-czar, you analyze the possibilities:

• Is Moldova available? Yes! It is one of the poorest countries in Europe and you are sure it is weak and divided, with at least some of its 2.6 million people (less than half the population of St. Petersburg, your beloved hometown) pining for the Soviet days. The leadership appears none too stable: Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita resigned in February after Zelensky warned you were plotting to overthrow her government. And U.S.-educated President Maia Sandu blames you for the regular street rallies demanding she step down. (She has a point: You do pay the demonstrators, indirectly, through her political rival, pro-Moscow oligarch Ilan Shor — head of the eponymous Shor Party — who fled to Israel to escape prosecution for embezzlement and money-laundering.)
   
• Is Moldova attainable? Yes, again! Your move to cut the gas supplies on which the country depended undoubtedly hastened Gavrilita’s departure. It also wrecked an anemic economy, producing the high inflation that has amplified calls for Sandu to go back to Harvard. Certainly, the 1,500 troops you have stationed in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria territory could — without too much additional support — subdue Chisinau in a trice. As the penurious protesters have proved, trifling handouts should be more than enough to purchase political quiescence. Meanwhile, your propaganda efforts (including a deluge of pro-Russia TikTok videos and offers of free, Russian-language online education) have ensured that only 40 percent of Moldovans believe Moscow is to blame for the Ukraine war.

Something borrowed

All good causes need a catchy slogan. Annoyingly, the Americans exhibited their public relations mastery as far back as 1898, when proto-Fox News “journalists” — seizing on the mysterious sinking of a U.S. warship in Havana Harbor — coined the phrase “Remember the Maine!” to justify war with Spain. Trump, of course, completed the arc in 2016 with his masterstroke, “Make America Great Again.” 

Though nigh-omnipotent, you’re humble enough to know there is no shame in borrowing from a “friend.” So, you adopt “Make Moldova Great Again” as your battle cry. Perhaps you could emblazon it on hats (doesn’t one of your oligarchs own a factory?) and toss them to your adoring fans at rallies. And that pesky International Criminal Court arrest warrant? Your visits to Crimea and Mariupol and reception of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping in Moscow have shown the world you are not afraid.

Reality check

Now imagine you are a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Chisinau privy to the foregoing. You are aware Yahoo! News on March 14 reported that, in collaboration with European press agencies, it had obtained an internal Kremlin document detailing a Russia strategy for Moldova consistent with Zelensky’s warning. You know that, as much as Putin would like to dismiss Sandu (turning 51 in May) as a lightweight, she represents a serious threat to his legitimacy. 

Having cleared out a cadre of corrupt Putin-style apparatchiks from Moldova’s ministries and networked tirelessly with Western leaders to build international support for her reforms — donning sneakers and flying coach to underscore her common touch and commitment to fiscal responsibility — the peripatetic president has no shortage of admirers in Washington and beyond. The key will not be in convincing Biden and U.S. policymakers that she is a good egg, but rather that backing her publicly and forcefully is essential to keeping the Russian fox out of the Moldovan henhouse.

Decision time

As a seasoned diplomat, you understand that — though Washington takes many threats seriously — it cannot act on them all. Does this one rise to the level where action is imperative? You believe it does. Indeed, your analysis is that Putin need not conquer Moldova to succeed. By continuing to suborn the country, he can deprive the EU and NATO of a prospective member, thereby taking some of the stink off his Ukraine debacle.

You believe that, as it did with Zelensky, the United States and its allies should strengthen Sandu through enhanced intelligence-sharing. Visits to Chisinau by senior U.S. officials — up to and including the president — as well as EU and NATO leaders would put down a marker (the Moldovan president last visited Washington in December). Shor’s arrest in Israel and extradition to stand trial in Moldova would deprive the Kremlin of its chief protagonist and take the wind out of the anti-government demonstrators’ sails. The positioning of a NATO expeditionary unit in Romania would send notice to Putin that his troops could find themselves staring down the barrels of far-superior forces.

And what of U.S. interests? They are neither negligible nor difficult to discern. Moldova’s hard-fought battle for independence following the Soviet Union’s collapse is as inspiring, if far less known, as Ukraine’s current struggle. Though Russia succeeded in hiving off Transnistria, Chisinau won the freedom to introduce a market economy and pursue closer ties with its European neighbors, bolstering regional stability. 

That’s reason enough not to allow it to become the pliable satellite of Putin’s dreams. It’s reason enough to ensure that its citizens have the chance to partake in, and contribute to, the U.S.-led alliance whose raison d’être is the defense of liberty.

Cam Burks is a senior fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute. He is a corporate global security executive, previously serving in chief security officer and enterprise, geopolitical strategy leadership positions at Chevron Corporation and Adobe. He served for nearly 15 years in the Foreign Service as a special agent and American Embassy Regional Security Officer (RSO) with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, including as the senior RSO at the U.S. Embassy in Chisinau Moldova from 2004-2007. He is a network affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.