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In the 31 years that have passed since the Republic of Moldova proclaimed its independence in 1991, Russia has always had people among the representatives of political parties and the administration in Chișinău, from the bottom to the very top of the hierarchy, from presidents, to ministers and heads of various departments. Some didn’t bother to hide their connections to Moscow, while others seem to have played their part flawlessly, ending up at the helm of nationalist and pro-European movements, which allowed Russia to control certain political developments in this country.
Veridica has already talked about the most prominent politicians of the 1990s, Iurie Roșca, Mircea Snegur and Petru Lucinschi. In this new episode, we will look at some of the people who, to greater or lesser extents, have helped keep Chișinău within the Russian Federation’s sphere of influence in the first 20 years in the current millennium.
The list is neither exhaustive, nor definitive.
Vladimir Voronin, from Europe’s Cuba to the army’s futility
Vladimir Voronin has been the leader of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) ever since the party was founded in 1994. Much like Petru Lucinschi, Voronin is an advocate of the Soviet administrative system.
Vladimir Voronin was the first president of the Republic of Moldova elected by Parliament instead of universal suffrage after the Constitution was amended in 2000. He took power as leader of PCRM, the party that won the snap elections of 2001. In the election campaign, the party had promoted pro-Russian slogans, promising to make Russian the second state language of the Republic of Moldova or to turn the country into “Europe’s Cuba”. Vladimir Voronin seems to have been keen on going down in history as the politician who settled the Transnistrian conflict.
In 2003, Kremlin-mediated negotiations were launched between Chișinău and Tiraspol, which were due to result in signing a resolution that would settle the Transnistrian crisis, known as the Kozak Memorandum. The memorandum was in fact a plan to federalize the Republic of Moldova and, among other things, would have allowed Russia to keep military bases across the territory of the Republic of Moldova for at least 20 years. At the same time, Tiraspol was granted veto rights concerning any foreign policy actions taken by central authorities, which meant that, if Chișinău had tried to pursue pro-European or pro-Romanian policies, Tiraspol would have been able to stave them off. The memorandum was due to be signed on November 25, 2003, in the presence of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Hours before the ceremony, Vladimir Voronin himself refused to sign, although he had previously voiced no opposition to the text of the document. Vladimir Putin was said to have just boarded the plane when he learned about Voronin’s decision. The move was not surprising though. On the morning on November 25, the US Ambassador to Chișinău at the time, Heather Hodges, had a long talk with president Voronin, which prompted the latter’s refusal to sign the Kozak Memorandum, which had otherwise been already stamped and dated. To this day it is unclear what arguments the American Ambassador presented to Voronin which succeeded in talking him out of taking the deal. It appears, however, that her arguments outweighed any consequences Voronin might have accepted to face from the Kremlin.
After Voronin’s refusal to sign the Kozak Memorandum, Chișinău’s relations with Moscow soured for a few years, and Vladimir Voronin tried to bring Moldova closer to the West. In 2005, not without the support of his foreign partners, he succeeded in securing a second term as head of state.
Ever since his first term in office, when PCRM controlled 71 of the total of 101 seats in Parliament, Voronin managed to instate an authoritarian regime that would control most of the media, as well as the judiciary. The same kind of administration was extended over the course of his second mandate.
While in power, Voronin also saw to the family business and helped his associates make a fortune. It was around this time that many controversial businessmen started to gain influence. One example is Vladimir Plahotniuc, who at one point would become Chișinău’s strongman, shortly before being listed on the Magnitsky Act adopted by the United States of America for multiple acts of corruption and fraud.
Starting 2007, Vladimir Voronin shifted his foreign policy orientation, starting to criticize several of the West’s initiatives regarding the Republic of Moldova, such as the Eastern Partnership, and again pressed for closer relations with Russia, growing increasingly isolated at international level.
At the same time, he came up with new draft resolutions to the conflict in Transnistria, which, among other things, stipulated that the Republic of Moldova would never renounce its military neutrality. Furthermore, Vladimir Voronin suggested that both Chișinău as well as Tiraspol should discard their arsenals, which he described as futile.
In April 2009, shortly after the parliamentary election won by the Communists, Vladimir Voronin faced widespread protests generated by societal suspicion regarding possible election fraud. April 7, 2009 saw violent clashes between demonstrators and the riot police. At least one person was killed and a few hundred others were wounded or arrested and tortured by the police. The media at the time wrote that the protests were peaceful at origin, but were allegedly highjacked by Moscow instigators in order to further isolate Vladimir Voronin internationally and make him increasingly reliant on Moscow. It appeared this kind of scenario had been used for many years in Belarus. After the April 2009 election, the Communists lacked a single vote in Parliament to be able to elect Zinaida Greaceanîi as head of state, the latter at the being serving as Prime Minister and a loyal subordinate of Voronin’s. Voronin himself was expected to become Parliament Speaker. In the early parliamentary election of July 2009, PCRM this time failed to secure majority in Parliament, and the Communists started losing their once far-reaching grip on Moldovan politics.
Voronin is fated to be remembered as a Soviet apparatchik who, under certain circumstances, tried to defend his own interests to the detriment of Moldova’s in relations with Moscow.
Igor Dodon: the rise to power in Voronin’s shadows and the partnership with oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc
After 2009, when the Party of Communists started to lose popularity, Russia found a new party to back in Chișinău: the Party of Socialists (PSRM), led by Igor Dodon.
Igor Dodon was groomed by Vladimir Voronin’s Party of Communists, with which he broke in 2012. The Socialist leader never hid his pro-Kremlin sympathies: he repeatedly stated the Republic of Moldova must adhere to the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union (EACU) to the detriment of the European Union, and argued in favor of reviewing Moldova’s Association Treaty with the EU. Dodon also said the refusal to sign the Kozak Memorandum in 2003 was a mistake.
In 2016, Igor Dodon became president, with support from oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, who made sure Moldova would revert to the previous election model, whereby the president was elected in open ballot instead of being designated by Parliament. The moment he was sworn in, Igor Dodon said the Republic of Moldova should develop good relations with both the East and the West, instead of playing only the European integration card, which had been the official policy until then.
Over the course of Igor Dodon’s mandate, the Republic of Moldova was left isolated on the global political stage, and the only heads of state to visit Chișinău during this period were the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Conversely, Igor Dodon paid a few dozen visits to Moscow during his term in office, most of which were informal.
In February 2019, president Dodon attended the International Security Conference in Munich, where he advanced a proposal to settle the conflict in Transnistria. The opposition criticized the move, arguing it was in fact a Russian plan to federalize the Republic of Moldova and thus empower Transnistria.
Dodon further tried to take a 200-million-dollar loan from the Russian Federation. Among several other things, the loan agreement provided for a large participation of Russian businesses in public procurement procedures in the Republic of Moldova, and also meant the Moldovan government would cover some of the debt to Russian banks. The agreement was ultimately rejected by the Constitutional Court, which deemed it unconstitutional.
President Dodon was at the center of several corruption and illegal funding scandals. One of these scandals broke out with the release of a video showing Igor Dodon receiving from Vladimir Plahotniuc a bag allegedly filled with cash. In the video, Dodon admitted he was briefing president Putin on a weekly basis with respect to developments in the Republic of Moldova.
Igor Dodon lost the November 2020 presidential election to the current president, Maia Sandu. Due to poor decision-making, he failed to designate a Prime Minister in due time, causing the dissolution of Parliament and the organization of snap elections, which the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) founded by Maia Sandu won by a landslide.
At present, Igor Dodon is the subject of several investigations, including high treason and illicit enrichment.
Apparently, Moscow was deeply disillusioned with Igor Dodon’s fumbles, which led to PSRM losing the election, despite the support of the Russian FSB, confirmed by a US Government note that accompanied the decision to list several Moldovan and Russian citizens as targets of sanctions under the Magnitsky Act.
Ilan Shor, a circumstantial and controversial politician
With the Socialists’ defeat, Moscow now seems to have put its money on Shor Party, as stated above, a party led by controversial businessman Ilan Shor, the man believed to have played a pivotal role in the biggest bank heist in the Republic of Moldova, the total prejudice of which amounted to 1 billion USD.
Ilan Shor apparently never wanted to enter politics, but eventually ended up at the helm of a party, swayed by Vladimir Plahotniuc, who at the time needed a party that would siphon off votes from the Socialists and which he would also be able to fully control. This made Ilan Shor the ideal candidate for Plahotniuc’s project. Shor could be easily blackmailed, due to being handed a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence in the billion-dollar theft case. Shor ultimately eluded prison (apparently helped by Vladimir Plahotniuc), since the sentence is final only once the Court of Appeal issues a ruling in this matter, something it has failed to do to this day.
In 2019, after the Plahotniuc regime was ousted, Shor fled the Republic of Moldova, much like his former associate. Right now, Ilan Shor is in Israel from where he leads his party remotely.
Much like Plahotniuc, Shor was also included on list of US sanctions targeting Russian and Moldovan magnates. A government note accompanying the decision stated the following:
“In advance of the 2021 Moldovan elections, Russia planned to undermine Moldovan president Maia Sandu and return Moldova to Russia’s sphere of influence. To support this effort, Shor worked with Russian individuals to create a political alliance to control Moldova’s parliament, which would then support several pieces of legislation in the interests of the Russian Federation.”
In the same press release, the US government noted that, a year later, in June 2022, “Shor had received Russian support and the Shor Party was coordinating with representatives of other oligarchs to create political unrest in Moldova. In June 2022, Shor worked with Moscow-based entities to undermine Moldova’s EU bid as the vote for candidate status was underway”.
The Ministry of Justice in Chișinău has recently called for outlawing Shor Party for its actions that sought to undermine state sovereignty. The Constitutional Court of Moldova is expected to issue a ruling in this respect.
