Author: Vitaly Portnikov
Formally, the “unofficial” visit of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Moldova is a truly historical event in the post-Soviet space. For the first time in 28 years, the Russian defense minister visited a country, whose part of the territory is under effective Russian military occupation – even if in Moscow he prefers to talk not about the occupants, but about the peacekeeping troops, writes the Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov.
How such a humility of the Moldovan state’s sovereignty was possible, asks the Ukrainian journalist. The leaders of the Russian military department were not allowed to come to Chisinau even when the communist president Vladimir Voronin was in power, who in the first period of his reign was not a less loyal ally of Moscow than Igor Dodon is today. Moscow and Chisinau were aware that there were “red lines” that could not be broken, writes Portnikov. According to him, this time, the “red line” was deliberately and consciously violated. Shoigu’s visit was one of the first real consequences of the creation of a coalition government of pro-European political forces led by Prime Minister Maia Sandu and President Dodon’s pro-Russian socialists.
According to Pornikov, under the control of Dodon – that is, the Kremlin – the most important institutions of force pass. Prime Minister Maia Sandu was not even informed about Shoigu’s visit. The head of the military department of the occupying country behaves in Chisinau, and even more so in Tiraspol, as a true master.
In Moldova, in West and all those who want to see, the real limits of the prime minister’s power have been demonstrated. Maia Sandu faces a very difficult choice: either to accept the role of head of government, whose power is substantially limited in matters of national security and sovereignty, or to refuse the coalition with the collaborators.