The new leader in Chisinau, Maia Sandu, will pursue the West's and Romania's interests in the Republic of Moldova and will try to diminish the Russian influence, and this will affect Russian speakers and the Russian minority.
"A protégé of the West and of Romania, Maia Sandu not only defeated the candidate supported by some Russian politicians, Igor Dodon, but did so with a crushing score: Sandu - 57.74%, Dodon - 42.26%. A difference of over 15%, which, until recently, the right-wing forces in Moldova did not even dare to dream of. Moldova is a very poor country, and poor people usually sympathize with the left. Especially the elderly, which, according to data from the Central Electoral Commission of Moldova, accounted for the largest share of those who went to the polls.”
NARRATIVES: 1. A president was elected in Chisinau who demonstrates, on the whole, that Russia keeps losing influence in the post-Soviet space, where leaders and the public opinion are beginning to have increasingly shrinking pro-Russia visions. 2. The West is growing leaders whom it now pushes to the highest positions to serve its interests to the detriment of Moscow. 3. Maia Sandu is responsible for schools closing down in the Republic of Moldova. 4. Maia Sandu is an admirer of Marshal Ion Antonescu. 5. Maia Sandu is a member of the LGBT community.
CONTEXT / LOCAL ETHOS: This material is the translation of an article carried by the Russian daily "Moskovskij Komsomolets" and appears in the context of the victory of the pro-European candidate, Maia Sandu, in the presidential election. Igor Dodon continues to attack her and has launched the idea of designating Russian as the second official language of the country.
The Republic of Moldova will become a "colony" of the West, which dictates policies in small countries, where there are only obedient puppets always ready to fulfill Brussels’ and Washington’s orders.
PURPOSE: The main goal is to denigrate the new president in Chisinau and the leaders in Bucharest who support her. In extenso, the material seeks to denigrate in corpore the Western world and its "values".
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Largely speaking, the article covers all the derogatory topics used against the candidate Maia Sandu during the presidential campaign in Chisinau, which ended, on November 15, with a landslide victory against the former pro-Russian president, Igor Dodon.
The author of the article first resumes the main line of attack used against Maia Sandu and tries to associate her with the Soros Foundation and certain financial ties that allegedly existed between the former Prime Minister of Chisinau Iurie Leanca and his advisers and this foundation. During the Leancă government, Maia Sandu held the position of Minister of Education between 2012-2015.
Right from the start, the article makes it clear that Maia Sandu's "sin" is that she is not married and has no children. Hence, author Marina Perevozkina ironically insinuates that she "is probably a lesbian, to the liking of Americans." Sexual minorities represent one of the favorite themes of the Russian propaganda against the West, which is presented as being quite decadent in this regard. This theory of the links between Maia Sandu and the LGBT community has been used since the 2016 election campaign, including by the pro-Russian bishop of Balti, Marchel, counting on the fact that the Republic of Moldova is a conservative society. These rumors are not based on any public come out or evidence of any kind.
Attempts are being made to promote the idea that, domestically, Maia Sandu climbed the professional ranks through corruption (her father was the head of a pig farm, and in the Republic of Moldova there was not much meat for sale). Likewise, the connections with the Soros Foundation promoted her to the highest level at the World Bank and then in the political life in Chisinau.
The article then resumes the false theory according to which Maia Sandu closed schools during her term as Ministry of Education, in particular those with classes taught in Russian.
According to official statistics provided by the National Bureau of Statistics, in the period 2012-2015, about 20% of high schools were closed because of an extremely low number of students, the result of a massive population decline in the Republic of Moldova, especially due to migration. Regarding primary schools and gymnasiums, their number has only slightly increased.
Moreover, the decision to “optimize” the number of educational institutions was actually signed back in 2008 by the current president of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova and speaker of the Parliament in Chisinau, Zinaida Greceanii, when she was the prime minister, and Igor Dodon was the Minister of Economy.
As regards the economic part, according to the article Maia Sandu will try to take advantage of the Russian markets for Moldovan products, while at the same time trying to expel the Russian troops from Transnistria, which could stop a potential armed conflict.
In reality, somewhere between 65-70% of the Moldovan products are exported to European markets, while only about 8% go to Russia due to the economic embargo imposed by Moscow on Chisinau in 2013, for political reasons. As regards the withdrawal of the Russian forces from Transnistria, the Russian Federation undertook to do so at the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in 1999. The process should have been completed by the end of 2002, but it never happened. Moscow has never shown any intention of doing so, even though the Republic of Moldova has repeatedly called for compliance with the summit's decisions. The Russian author tries to suggest that Maia Sandu is an admirer of Marshal Antonescu and thus make a link between her image and the Russian propaganda themes used against Ukraine, according to which new leaders of some former Soviet republics are Nazi sympathizers. Another idea is that the West is growing, through NGOs, leaders such as Mikhail Saakashvili, Maia Sandu, Nikol Pashinian (Armenia) or Alexei Navalny (Russia), whom it then uses in a premeditated and targeted manner against Russia. They are set to promote "Western values" and destroy their countries' relations with Russia. GRAIN OF TRUTH: All the theories defended in this article are based on certain data and real people. For example, in 2016, a series of documents were hacked from the servers of the Soros Foundation indicating that he presumably paid some of Iurie Leancă's advisers (Details HERE). Also, Maia Sandu has Romanian citizenship too, and she has indeed stated that she would opt for union. She is unmarried and has no children. Starting from that, Russia tried to attack her through Church and also to make a connection between her and the LGBT community. WHOM THE NARRATIVES BENEFIT: The perpetuation of such theories in the Romanian media benefits the Russian propaganda, which tries to have the readers of this portal resonate with the Russian anti-West ideas and defend conspiracy theories about the “world occult” and the role of the US in this story. Just as it’s been the case with the Republic of Moldova recently, there are now attempts to disseminate in Romania as well the idea that the US’s east-European partners are just colonies where Washington does whatever it pleases. Moreover, it uses them and pits them against Moscow. These countries have no say, no national pride, and the leaders of these countries are just puppets dancing to the tune of American interests and the "world occult" led by George Soros.
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