DISINFO: Brussels wants to turn Moldova into an alternative battlefield to Ukraine
SUMMARY
Brussels is interested in Moldova. Its interest stems from the fact that the European elite has decided that Zelenskyy and his political regime in Ukraine, like Ukraine itself, may be in their final days or months and no longer have any role in global or European politics. Therefore, they want to use Moldova as an alternative battlefield to "Ukraine".
RESPONSE
The narrative of turning Moldova into a "second Ukraine" has been a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative.
First, turning Moldova into a second Ukraine implies that the Europe is responsible for the war in Ukraine. The claim that the West allegedly provoked the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the key messages of Putin’s propaganda. It was Putin’s personal decision to invade Ukraine and start the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII.
Second, Moldova has been a sovereign and independent state since 1992 when it proclaimed its independence from the former USSR. As a sovereign state, Moldova is free to decide its own foreign policy and alliances. Moldova is a military neutral state, as stipulated by its Constitution (Article 11).
Third, Russia is the one that has threatened to extend the war to Moldova’s eastern border with Ukraine. On 22 April 2022, Rustam Minnekaev, a Russian general, declared that control over southern Ukraine would open up a route to Transnistria, where he claimed that Russian-speakers were being oppressed.
The EU Council launched the EU Partnership Mission in the Republic of Moldova (EUPM Moldova) on 22 May 2023 under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) to enhance the resilience of the security sector in the country. The aim of the mission is to contribute to the strengthening of Moldova’s crisis management structures and to enhance its resilience to hybrid threats, including cybersecurity, and countering foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). This is an exclusively civilian mission and is in no way aimed against Russia.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that Washington could turn Moldova into another Ukraine, that the West wants to make a second Ukraine out of Moldova, that the West wants to turn Moldova into a "second Ukraine" against Russia, and that the West is considering of making Moldova "the second Ukraine".