The Bashkan of Gagauzia, Eugenia Gutsul, and the chairman of the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia (PAG), Dmitry Konstantinov, are in Moscow “on a working visit”. They signed an agreement on cooperation between Gagauzia and Russia’s Promsvyazbank. Gutsul wrote about it on her Telegram channel, while Russian media circulated a video of Gutsul and Konstantinov’s statements. Meanwhile, analysts at the American Institute for the Study of War believe that Gutsul’s statements about the possibility of Gagauzia separating from Moldova when joining Romania represent an attempt by the Kremlin to “use pro-Russian figures to destabilize Moldova.”
“Today we are signing an agreement with one of the largest Russian banks, Promsvyazbank, on cooperation and support. (…) This is a very important moment for us. Russia has once again saved our people and confirmed its status as a friend and protector of the Gagauz. Our specialists are already working on technical, organizational, and legal issues. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we already know that victory will be ours!” wrote Gutsul in her Telegram channel.
“The Kremlin-affiliated governor of the pro-Russian Moldova autonomous region of Gagauzia, Eugenia Gutsul, insinuated that Romanian officials control the Moldovan government — the latest in a series of recent Kremlin efforts to question European pro-Western governments’ sovereignty. Gutsul’s April 8 interview on Russian state television is likely aimed at setting conditions to justify potential future Russian aggression against Moldova to Russian speakers and pro-Russian audiences in Gagauzia, Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway republic of Transnistria, and other pro-Russian areas of Europe and Central Asia and in Russia itself. The Kremlin likely views its efforts in Moldova as part of Russia’s wider existential geopolitical conflict with the West. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and MFA officials recently insinuated that Western countries are somehow guiding the Armenian government‘s national security policy and claimed that Finland has “lost its independence in making foreign policy decisions” since its accession to NATO.
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The Kremlin will likely continue claiming that its various target states are not fully sovereign to set information conditions for Russian hybrid or conventional operations against them. ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is likely attempting to use pro-Russian actors in Moldova to destabilize Moldovan democracy and society, prevent Moldova’s accession to the European Union (EU), or even justify future hybrid or conventional operations against Moldova,” the ISW stressed.