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But Moldova survived, and now Sandu, who is running for reelection this fall for a second four-year term, is intent on taking her country into the European Union, with overwhelming popular support. She eventually hopes for Moldova to join NATO, too, although there is not yet majority backing for that move. Membership in either organization is anathema to Putin because it means Moldova will escape out of his grasp.
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Sandu is fighting back against not only Russian influence but also — a related problem — the pervasive corruption that has beset many post-Soviet states. In 2014 and 2015, Moldova saw the “theft of the century”: Roughly $1 billion, amounting to 12 percent of its gross domestic product at the time, was stolen from its banking system. A Kremlin-backed oligarch was convicted by a Moldovan court, but he fled to Israel, where he organized protests against Sandu.
“We are trying our best to save Moldovan democracy,” Sandu said. “The biggest threat is Russia, but corruption is No. 2. Russia is using corrupt groups to undermine our elections.” The Post has documented how the Russian security services have funneled tens of millions of dollars into Moldova to support pro-Russian leaders, and last year, Sandu’s government said it had uncovered a Kremlin-engineered coup attempt to topple her government.
Sandu said that her government has instituted rules requiring judges and prosecutors to show that all of their assets were acquired legally — and very few could do so.
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“Honest people either left the system or did not have the courage to go against the system,” she said. She is now fighting to change that crooked system with the help of a parliamentary majority for her pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity.
While Moldova is one of Europe’s poorest countries, it has been stalwart in welcoming more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees who have crossed its frontiers since the start of the Russian invasion (a similar refugee inflow as a percentage of the U.S. population: 132 million people). Most of those newcomers have moved on to other European countries, but 116,000 remain. With vital assistance from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the United States and other international partners, Moldova has opened its arms to the newcomers. Moldovans like to say that theirs is a “small country with a big heart,” and the praise is fully warranted, as I saw during visits to refugee resettlement centers. “It is our duty to help Ukrainian refugees,” Sandu said.
Sandu has important messages both for the Biden administration and its MAGA critics — without naming either. Addressing the growing popularity of isolationism in the United States, she said, “I understand some people want to isolate themselves, but no one can build enough walls to protect them from the mess around the world.”
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Referring obliquely to the danger of former president Donald Trump returning to office, she said, “I’m really concerned about what happens in the fall when the United States has elections. Until then, we will not see the danger of Russia coming close to Moldova’s borders. But the fall is dangerous.” If Moldovans see that the United States no longer supports Ukraine, she warns, they will not risk voting for her again and will instead support a pro-Russian candidate. That, in fact, might be a reason she is reportedly planning to hold Moldova’s presidential election shortly before the one in the United States.
But Sandu is also implicitly scathing about the failure of President Biden and other Western leaders to provide more armaments more quickly to Ukraine. She thinks the West missed an opportunity when Putin was at his weakest during the rebellion of Wagner mercenaries in June 2023. “The West was afraid of what Putin will do,” she said. “I don’t know why. … I would like the West to become more courageous. The longer the war lasts, the more difficult the situation becomes for us.”
While Sandu rues “missed opportunities,” she insisted, “I still believe the war is not lost.” She sees no alternative to defeating Russia: “I don’t believe Putin will stick to anything he signs. He lies all the time. He will use a cease-fire to strengthen his military capacity. He’s not going to stop. He believes he’s strong. Why would he stop?” She argues that the West should remove restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western-made weapons to target oil refineries and other strategic targets in Russia. (Ukraine employs domestically manufactured drones for those missions.)
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Hearing her tough talk reminded me of Thatcher telling President George H.W. Bush after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: “This is no time to go wobbly.” For Moldovans, Sandu said, “It’s easy for us to be courageous. We have no choice. We don’t want Russia in our territory. This is our only chance to survive as a democracy.”
If the Biden administration wants a fresh and credible voice to make the case for supporting Ukraine, it should bring President Sandu to Washington to explain some home truths to Republicans eager to abandon Ukraine — and thereby to put all of Russia’s neighbors in danger of becoming Putin’s next victims.
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CHISINAU, Moldova — The whole world knows that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been a profile in courage in resisting the Russian invasion of his country. Much less well-known is Maia Sandu, who has been president of Ukraine’s tiny neighbor Moldova since 2020. Yet she also deserves wide celebration because she has been similarly stalwart in defending democratic values in the face of Russian aggression. If Zelensky is the Winston Churchill of Ukraine, then Sandu is the Margaret Thatcher of Moldova.
I met Sandu in early February while visiting her country with a delegation organized by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees — and I was blown away by her unflinching defense of Western values and condemnation of Russian imperialism. “Putin will not stop unless he is stopped,” she told us in flawless English. (She is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and used to work for the World Bank.) “If he is not stopped, the security of the whole continent will be endangered and other leaders will learn you can invade other countries and nothing happens.”
She added: “Ukraine is not just fighting for its own sovereignty and independence. Ukrainian resistance keeps peace in Moldova.”
Sandu’s solidarity with Ukraine is particularly impressive given the looming danger from Russia that her tiny country (population: about 2.6 million) has faced since it declared independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. A tiny breakaway part of Moldova called Transnistria, wedged between the Dniester River and Ukraine, has been occupied by Russia since 1992; there are even 1,500 Russian troops stationed there. Moscow has long been accustomed to exercising substantial influence in Moldova itself by pouring in illicit funds to buy off politicians and businesspeople.
On the morning of Feb. 24, 2022, residents of Moldova’s capital, Chisinau (pronounced ki·shuh·nau), could hear the distant thunder from Russia’s bombing of southern Ukraine. “The country was petrified,” a Western diplomat recalled. If Ukrainian forces had not prevented the Russians from taking the port city of Odessa, just over the border from Moldova, there would have been nothing to stop Vladimir Putin’s legions from rolling into Moldova.
But Moldova survived, and now Sandu, who is running for reelection this fall for a second four-year term, is intent on taking her country into the European Union, with overwhelming popular support. She eventually hopes for Moldova to join NATO, too, although there is not yet majority backing for that move. Membership in either organization is anathema to Putin because it means Moldova will escape out of his grasp.
Sandu is fighting back against not only Russian influence but also — a related problem — the pervasive corruption that has beset many post-Soviet states. In 2014 and 2015, Moldova saw the “theft of the century”: Roughly $1 billion, amounting to 12 percent of its gross domestic product at the time, was stolen from its banking system. A Kremlin-backed oligarch was convicted by a Moldovan court, but he fled to Israel, where he organized protests against Sandu.
“We are trying our best to save Moldovan democracy,” Sandu said. “The biggest threat is Russia, but corruption is No. 2. Russia is using corrupt groups to undermine our elections.” The Post has documented how the Russian security services have funneled tens of millions of dollars into Moldova to support pro-Russian leaders, and last year, Sandu’s government said it had uncovered a Kremlin-engineered coup attempt to topple her government.
Sandu said that her government has instituted rules requiring judges and prosecutors to show that all of their assets were acquired legally — and very few could do so.
“Honest people either left the system or did not have the courage to go against the system,” she said. She is now fighting to change that crooked system with the help of a parliamentary majority for her pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity.
While Moldova is one of Europe’s poorest countries, it has been stalwart in welcoming more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees who have crossed its frontiers since the start of the Russian invasion (a similar refugee inflow as a percentage of the U.S. population: 132 million people). Most of those newcomers have moved on to other European countries, but 116,000 remain. With vital assistance from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the United States and other international partners, Moldova has opened its arms to the newcomers. Moldovans like to say that theirs is a “small country with a big heart,” and the praise is fully warranted, as I saw during visits to refugee resettlement centers. “It is our duty to help Ukrainian refugees,” Sandu said.
Sandu has important messages both for the Biden administration and its MAGA critics — without naming either. Addressing the growing popularity of isolationism in the United States, she said, “I understand some people want to isolate themselves, but no one can build enough walls to protect them from the mess around the world.”
Referring obliquely to the danger of former president Donald Trump returning to office, she said, “I’m really concerned about what happens in the fall when the United States has elections. Until then, we will not see the danger of Russia coming close to Moldova’s borders. But the fall is dangerous.” If Moldovans see that the United States no longer supports Ukraine, she warns, they will not risk voting for her again and will instead support a pro-Russian candidate. That, in fact, might be a reason she is reportedly planning to hold Moldova’s presidential election shortly before the one in the United States.
But Sandu is also implicitly scathing about the failure of President Biden and other Western leaders to provide more armaments more quickly to Ukraine. She thinks the West missed an opportunity when Putin was at his weakest during the rebellion of Wagner mercenaries in June 2023. “The West was afraid of what Putin will do,” she said. “I don’t know why. … I would like the West to become more courageous. The longer the war lasts, the more difficult the situation becomes for us.”
While Sandu rues “missed opportunities,” she insisted, “I still believe the war is not lost.” She sees no alternative to defeating Russia: “I don’t believe Putin will stick to anything he signs. He lies all the time. He will use a cease-fire to strengthen his military capacity. He’s not going to stop. He believes he’s strong. Why would he stop?” She argues that the West should remove restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western-made weapons to target oil refineries and other strategic targets in Russia. (Ukraine employs domestically manufactured drones for those missions.)
Hearing her tough talk reminded me of Thatcher telling President George H.W. Bush after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: “This is no time to go wobbly.” For Moldovans, Sandu said, “It’s easy for us to be courageous. We have no choice. We don’t want Russia in our territory. This is our only chance to survive as a democracy.”
If the Biden administration wants a fresh and credible voice to make the case for supporting Ukraine, it should bring President Sandu to Washington to explain some home truths to Republicans eager to abandon Ukraine — and thereby to put all of Russia’s neighbors in danger of becoming Putin’s next victims.
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