DISINFO: The West wants to turn Moldova into a "second Ukraine" against Russia
SUMMARY
There are Western attempts to turn Moldova into a "second Ukraine" against Russia, but Moldova will not fall into this trap, despite American attempts to drag it into it.
RESPONSE
The narrative of turning Moldova into a "second Ukraine" has been a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about both Moldova and Ukraine.
First, turning Moldova into a second Ukraine implies that the West is responsible for the war in Ukraine. The claim that the West allegedly provoked the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the key messages of Putin’s propaganda. It was Putin’s personal decision to invade Ukraine and start the largest military conflict in Europe since WWII.
Second, Moldova has been a sovereign and independent state since 1992 when it proclaimed its independence from the former USSR. As a sovereign state, Moldova is free to decide its own foreign policy and alliances. Moldova is a military neutral state, as stipulated by its Constitution (Article 11).
Russia has threatened to extend the war to Moldova’s eastern border with Ukraine. On 22 April 2022 Rustam Minnekaev, a Russian general, declared that control over southern Ukraine would open up a route to Transnistria, where he claimed that Russian-speakers were being oppressed.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that Washington could turn Moldova into another Ukraine, that The West intends to push Romania’s take-over of Moldova to distract Russia, that Ukraine nationalists planning false-flag operation in Transnistria / Moldova, that The West is pushing Chisinau to attack Transnistria, that Moldova tries to drag Russia into confrontation with the collective West, that The West wants to make a second Ukraine out of Moldova, or that Moldova dreams of a Russian invasion.