Moldova

• 1. Introduction

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  Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of 33,843 square kilometres and a population of about 2.38 million people. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. Yet a strip of its own territory, on the east bank of the Dniester river, does not answer to its government at all. There, the breakaway state of Transnistria has held de facto control since 1990, with more than a thousand Russian soldiers stationed inside it.

  The name itself comes from a legend. Moldavian chroniclers Dimitrie Cantemir and Grigore Ureche recounted that Prince Dragoș named the Moldova River after a hunt for aurochs. His exhausted hound, called Molda, drowned in the water. The dog's name passed to the river, and the river's name passed to a principality. From that origin grew a country that today is the poorest in Europe by GDP per capita, yet ranks third in the world for gigabit internet coverage.

  How did a small valley settlement become a state pulled between Bucharest and Moscow? Why does a country technically without a coast operate a river port on the Danube? And how does a place barely larger than Belgium come to hold the largest wine cellar on the planet? The answers run through empires, soil, and a long argument over who the Moldovan people actually are.

• 2. Empires And Annexations

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  Most of Moldovan territory belonged to the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812. The valley of the Moldova River served as a political centre when the principality was founded in 1359. Under rulers like Stephen the Great the principality reached prominence, before becoming a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire from 1538.

  In 1812, following one of several Russian-Turkish wars, the Ottoman Empire ceded the eastern half of the principality to the Russian Empire. This region became known as Bessarabia, and Russian influence in the area began. In 1856 southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia to form Romania. Russian rule was restored over the entire region in 1878.

  During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Bessarabia briefly became an autonomous state within the Russian Republic. In February 1918 it declared independence as the Moldavian Democratic Republic. Later that year, following a vote of its assembly, the Sfatul Țării, it integrated into Romania. Soviet Russia disputed the decision. In 1924 it established a Moldavian autonomous republic inside the Ukrainian SSR, on partly Moldovan-inhabited land east of Bessarabia.

  In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. This led to the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. During the Soviet period, policies of Russification and economic transformation deeply influenced the region, and the environment suffered extreme degradation as industry and agriculture proceeded without regard for protection. On the 27th of August 1991, as the Soviet Union dissolved, the Moldavian SSR declared independence and took the name Moldova.

• 3. The Pull Westward

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  Maia Sandu was elected president in 2020 on a pro-Western and anti-corruption ticket, becoming the first female elected president of Moldova. Under her leadership the country has pursued membership in the European Union and was granted candidate status in June 2022. She strongly condemned Russia's invasion of neighbouring Ukraine and has suggested ending Moldova's constitutional commitment to military neutrality in favour of a closer alliance with NATO.

  Formal accession talks with the European Union began on the 13th of December 2023. Moldova has set 2030 as its target date for accession. In autumn 2024 the country held a referendum on joining the EU, and a narrow 50.17% voted yes, with Sandu alleging unprecedented outside interference. In the simultaneous presidential election Sandu received 42%, while her rival Alexandr Stoianoglo garnered 26%, leading to a run-off. In the November 2024 election Sandu was re-elected with 55% of the vote in the run-off.

  The European Union has matched the political shift with money. On the 28th of June 2023 it announced a 1.6 billion euro support and investment programme, along with reductions in mobile roaming charges and Moldova's entry to the EU's joint gas purchase platform. Josep Borrell, the Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, confirmed that the pathway to accession does not depend on resolving the Transnistria conflict.

• 4. The Hand From Moscow

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  A document written in 2021 by Russia's FSB, titled "Strategic objectives of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Moldova," set out a 10-year plan to destabilise the country using energy blackmail and political sources favourable to Russia and the Orthodox Church. Russia denies any such plan. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian government has frequently used its ties to the Russian Orthodox Church to block the integration of former Soviet states into the West.

  In February 2023, Russia canceled a 2012 decree underpinning Moldova's sovereignty. Moldova answered with a series of breaks. In May 2023 it suspended its participation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and in July 2023 it passed legislation removing itself from the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly. On the 8th of April 2026, Sandu promulgated laws denouncing the Belovezha Accords, the Alma-Ata Protocol, and the CIS Charter, the three founding agreements of the organisation.

  The friction grew personal in mid-2023. On the 25th of July the government summoned Russian ambassador Oleg Vasnetsov after media reports of alleged spying devices on the embassy roof in Chișinău. The next day it expelled 45 Russian diplomats and embassy staff over what Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu called hostile actions intended to destabilise the country. The Security and Intelligence Service ended all partnership agreements with Russia's FSB.

  In September 2025, an investigation revealed a secret Russian-backed network trying to disrupt the election scheduled for the 28th of September. Sanctioned Russian groups recruited operatives on Telegram and trained them to spread fake news, attack the pro-EU ruling party, and run fake polls. The operation was linked to fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor and the banned NGO Evrazia, with content reaching millions on TikTok and Facebook.

• 5. A Land Without A Coast

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  Moldova lies east of the Carpathian Mountains, between latitudes 45 and 49 degrees north. The Prut river separates it from Romania on the west, and the Dniester separates it from Ukraine on the east. Its national boundaries total 1,389 kilometres, of which 939 are shared with Ukraine and 450 with Romania. Around 88% of the country sits in the Bessarabia region, while a narrow eastern strip lies in Transnistria.

  In 1999, although technically landlocked, Moldova acquired from Ukraine a 0.45 kilometre river frontage on the Danube, in exchange for ceding a stretch of contested road. This turned the old village of Giurgiulești, in the extreme south-west, into a river port. The port gives Moldova access to international waters through the Danube and the Black Sea. At its closest point, only 3 kilometres of Ukrainian territory separate Moldova from the Dniester Liman, an estuary of the Black Sea.

  The terrain is mostly hilly, but elevations never exceed 430 metres, with Bălănești Hill the highest point. Moldova's exceptionally rich Chernozem soil covers around three-quarters of the land, and the Chernozem of the Bălți Steppe is described as the most arable soil on the planet. The climate is moderately continental. The highest temperature ever recorded was 42.4 degrees Celsius on the 7th of August 2012 in Fălești, and the lowest was minus 35.5 degrees on the 20th of January 1963 in Brătușeni.

  The capital and largest city is Chișinău, home to roughly a third of the country's population in its metro area, with about 695,400 people. Tiraspol, the second-largest city, sits on the eastern bank of the Dniester and serves as the capital of Transnistria. The third-largest city, Bălți, is called the northern capital and stands 127 kilometres north of Chișinău.

• 6. Vineyards And Cellars

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  With 300 days of sunshine a year, the climate of Moldova suits vineyards, and the wine industry is a major economic sector. It represents three percent of GDP and eight percent of total exports, according to government data. Although Moldova is barely larger than Belgium, it holds 122,000 hectares of vineyards and ranks among the 20 largest wine producers in the world, according to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine.

  The direction of that wine has flipped. Russia accounted for only 10 percent of Moldovan wine exports in 2021, down from 80 percent in the early 2000s, according to the Moldovan Ministry of Agriculture. In 2021 the country exported more than 120 million litres of wine to European countries, compared to 8.6 million litres to Russia, and the EU had become the main buyer. Moldovan wine reaches more than 70 states worldwide, and there are three historical regions: Valul lui Traian in the south west, Stefan Voda in the south east, and Codru in the centre.

  Mileștii Mici holds the title of largest wine cellar in the world. Its tunnels stretch for 200 kilometres, though only 55 are in use, and they hold some two million or more bottles. It has retained the Guinness World Record for largest wine cellar by number of bottles since 2005, and the earliest wines in its collection date to 1969. The Cricova winery's cellar stretches more than 120 kilometres. Every year on the 3rd and the 4th of October, the country celebrates National Wine Day, when producers open their wineries and run shuttle buses between locations.

• 7. A People Departing

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  Emigration is a mass phenomenon in Moldova. Between 1.2 and 2 million Moldovan citizens, over 25% of the population, are estimated to be living and working abroad, and the economy still relies heavily on their remittance payments. The largest diaspora populations include 285,000 in Romania in 2020, 258,600 in Ukraine in 2002, 188,923 in Italy in 2019, 156,400 in Russia in 2010, and 122,000 in Germany in 2022.

  The numbers at home are shrinking. According to Balkan Insight, the population has fallen by almost 33% since 1990, and by 2035 it may be half what it was that year. In 2022-43,000 more people left the country than came, slightly down from net emigration of 45,000 in 2021. The average number of children per woman of childbearing age was 1.69, well below the replacement rate of 2.1, and since 2018 deaths have exceeded live births.

  The most recent census, carried out in 2024 and excluding Transnistria, recorded a population of about 2,423,300. Ethnic Moldovans made up almost 77%, with Romanians at 8%, Ukrainians at 5%, Gagauzians at 4%, and Russians at 3%. The only official language is Romanian, though about 15% of the population also speak Russian. There remains controversy over whether Moldovan and Romanian should be considered distinct languages, with the government rejecting any distinction.

  The diaspora has shaped Moldova's politics from afar. Moldovans abroad voted overwhelmingly for Maia Sandu as president in 2020 and for her Party of Action and Solidarity in the 2021 parliamentary election. There are also signs that the invasion of Ukraine and the EU accession bid have drawn some emigrants back to their country of birth, seeking to help it join the Union.

• 8. Two Regions Apart

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  Transnistria lies on the eastern bank of the Dniester and borders Ukraine, and it has pursued close ties with Russia since 1992. The Transnistria War in 1992 left the region as a de facto independent state, and more than a thousand Russian soldiers remain stationed there. Its position on Ukraine's south-western flank has made it a potential threat to Ukraine's war efforts since Russia's invasion in 2022.

  Gagauzia, the country's other autonomous territorial unit, presents a different challenge. The Gagauz people are a Turkic-speaking group spread across southern Moldova and south-west Ukraine, with a distinctive language and a strong sense of identity, yet heavily Russified. In 2014, shortly before Moldova signed its EU Association Agreement, nearly 99 percent of Gagauzians voted in a referendum to reject closer links with Europe in favour of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. In 2015, just over half voted for the Russian-backed socialist candidate Irina Vlakh as governor.

  The region's current leader, Evghenia Guțul, thanked fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor in July 2023 for his personal and financial support, and expressed a desire for deeper ties with Russia. Shor leads the outlawed pro-Russian Șor Party. Moldova has answered such pressures with law. On the 2nd of February 2023 it passed a law introducing criminal penalties for separatism, including prison terms for financing and inciting it, and for plotting against the country.

  The deepest identity question of all points west rather than east. The possibility of unifying Moldova and Romania has remained a popular topic since 1991. Up to 74% of the Romanian public and more than 40% of the Moldovan public would support some form of integration, though most in both countries believe now is not the right time. A 2022 survey found only 11% of Romania's population supports an immediate union.