Vitaly Portnikov: Trap for Moldova
The new moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu paid his first visit to the Russian capital – and secured the promise of a half a billion dollars and lower gas prices. Earlier, President Igor Dodon and moldovan Parliament Speaker Zinaida Greceanai traveled to Moscow, while Prime Minister Reformer Maia Sandu visited Brussels, Bucharest and Kiev. The Moldovan special operation of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who was defeated in 2003 with a plan to turn all of Moldova into one big Transnistria, was a success.
He succeeded, however, because Kozak was supported in the West. When Putin’s comrade tried to force Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin to sign the notorious memorandum and agree to legitimize the eternal presence of Russian troops in Moldova, the West opposed it and the plan fell through. Kozak alone would not have done this time. If it weren’t for Washington and Brussels, Dodon would have remained an operet president for a long time, Grecianîi would have been an ordinary deputy from the opposition, and Chicu would have told Dodon about the economy as an elective. But now in Moldova there is a pro-russian president, a pro-russian speaker, a pro-russian government – and this despite the fact that the pro-russian forces do not have a majority in the Moldovan parliament. It turned out that to change course, one does not even need to repeat the success of the Ukrainian “servants of the people.” How could this happen?
Western diplomats with their own hands pulled out all the chestnuts he needed for Kozak, secured the departure of oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, who controlled one of the country’s main forces, and agreed with a coalition of pro-western and pro-russian forces, probably believing that now it would be possible to work together with Moscow over the deoligarchization of Moldova and the transformation of the country into a civilized state.
During these five months, Dodon became Plahotniuc. To be exact, Putin became Plahotniuc. They made an offer to the Democrats of Plahotniuc, which they could not refuse – and their officials, who know exactly how the flows are moving, are already returning en masse to only recently abandoned departments. And the government is made up of employees and associates of the operetta president, who, however, has long ceased to be operetta.
Dmitry Kozak can only mock partners and explain to reporters that the coalition of socialists and pro-European forces could not be stable. And to assure that between Russia, the European Union and the United States and at the stage of creating the cabinet of Maia Sandu, “there was no cooperation and interaction regarding the formation of a new government.” “Nothing terrible happened, we didn’t tug on anyone — neither, we not, hopefully, our European and American partners,” the Russian deputy prime minister summed up the collapse of the coalition initiated by the faction, whose full members go to Moscow for consultations.
Now the Russian vice-premier can take a break and more carefully engage in the design of a trap for a larger game – Ukraine. It is also known about Kozak’s contacts with adviser to Vladimir Zelensky, Andrei Yermak, and that in the office of an inexperienced Ukrainian president, the Deputy Prime Minister is perceived as a serious partner interested in a peaceful settlement. Actually, the price of this settlement was indicated during the visit of the new Moldavian prime minister to Moscow – surrender, pro-Russian government, credit, cheap gas.
It remains only to obtain the consent of the West.
