Roman, a young Moldovan, borrows his father’s car every night to pick up Ukrainian refugees at the Palanka border crossing and take them to the capital, Chisinau. He pays for the gas out of his own pocket.
He returned home alone last year, after a long period of work in Ireland. Faced with widespread poverty, almost a third of Moldovans go abroad in search of work to survive and support their families.
More than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the tiny country of about 3 million people since the Russian invasion began more than a week ago. About half of these people have traveled to neighboring Romania and from there often continue to other EU countries.
“Angelina, a woman I helped leave a few days ago, just wrote to me to tell me that she and her daughter had arrived in Prague and wanted to thank me,” Roman said, excited about a text message he had just received. received. “She writes that she could never have imagined that a stranger would do such a thing for her family and did not expect anything in return,” she told DW.
“We will help these people”
The Ukrainians began to line up on the border with Moldova on the first day of the war. On the same day, February 24, Moldovan President Maia Sandu announced that all border crossings were open and would operate at increased capacity. “We will help these people,” he said.
Many volunteers welcomed the refugees to the border with hot tea and hot meals. They quickly helped the refugees find shelter and organized transportation for those who wanted to travel below. Government authorities also provided free shuttle service and shelter. Many refugees, for example, lived at the Moldexpo convention center in Chisinau.
Tensions remain 30 years after the separatist war
Most of the refugees who stopped talking to DW at the border were deeply grateful for the hospitality provided by the people of Moldova.
However, a man quickly changed his mood, screaming at the DW correspondent in Russian that in 1992, “aggressive” Moldova had attacked the Transnistria. He then boarded a bus bound for Romania.
The man’s anger reflected the ongoing political tensions in the region, 30 years after the outbreak of war when pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow decided to secede from the Republic of Moldova. To this day, Russian troops remain stationed in the separatist Transnistria – despite the fact that the area still officially belongs to Moldova. Transnistria refused to recognize the government in Chisinau.
In Moldova, a former Soviet republic, fears of Russian aggression are particularly evident, especially now that the war in Ukraine is raging. Immediately after the start of the cross-border invasion, President Sandu also declared a state of emergency in her country and ordered the closure of her country’s airspace.
Parallels between Ukraine, Transnistrian crises
Viorel Cibotaru, a security expert and former Moldovan defense minister, sees clear parallels between the situation in Ukraine today and that of the 1992 war, when Russia backed the separatists.
“Both cases have to do with the preservation or restoration of the Soviet Union,” Cibotaru told DW. And as in the case of the self-proclaimed “people’s democracies” of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in the early 1990s “a lot of fake news” was circulating in the Transnistria.
“At the time, the Russians said they were not supplying weapons to the separatists, but they probably had no idea how they got them. In the same way they claimed for the longest time that the people of Donetsk and Luhansk were simply armed and that Russia had nothing. to do it, “he said.
Many experts in Moldova have warned that Russian troops stationed in the Transnistrian region could be directly involved in the attack on Ukraine. Cibotaru also could not rule it out.
“The troops in the Transnistria are like an old man with a rifle marking his territory during the time of the Russian tsars. But now, if needed, 30 fighter jets will come to his aid,” he said.
After Sandou signed her country’s formal application for EU membership on Thursday, the self-proclaimed Transnistrian government reacted the next day, urging the international community to recognize its own independence.
Many people are afraid of a similar scenario in Ukraine. The war is not far away, and at night many Moldovans are surprised by the thunder of explosions across the border.
Moldova’s great willingness to help its neighbors in such a threatening situation has deeply impressed the former head of the EU delegation in Chisinau, Peter Michalko.
“I am proud to have once lived in Moldova! I know many of you personally and I bow to every act of humanity and hospitality I see!” wrote the diplomat on his Facebook page. “You are an example for Europe and the whole world.”
This article was originally written in Romanian
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