If Russia takes Odessa, Moldova becomes a flashpoint - the little 'half-Russian' European country which matters

EU persecution of Moldova and its 800 year old church continues unabated, for good reason. Checking in 3 months after my recent visit.

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The jury is out as regards whether peace talks between Russia and the U.S. will yield any results. Many argue that a deal is imminent because Ukraine continues to crumple at speed, and it would be in their best interest to take a deal now, however unpleasant, rather than face a worse proposition in a few months.

The other view, widely held in Moscow, is that there will be no deal, because those calling the shots for Ukraine.—i.e., the Trump administration—have no interest in one, despite a flurry of diplomatic activity, which this view argues, is a cynical ruse. The logic here is that Trump could have ended this war anytime he wanted to since entering office, just as he said during his campaign—he could end it in a day, and that it is nonsense that Ukraine or the EU have anything to say in the matter, because the U.S. alone controls the military resources needed to prosecute the war. This view argues that Trump is trying to drag out the war for as long as possible, with no interest in the welfare of Ukraine, or what becomes of Ukraine afterwards, or the appalling loss of life on the Ukrainian side. It is simply a bid to tie down Russia for as long as possible, inflict as much damage on Russia as possible in terms of casualties and costs, kill as many Ukrainians (who are actually Russians) as possible, have Russia inflict as much damage as possible on Ukrainian cities—which it will eventually own—and also have a great opportunity to test weapons and make money selling as many as possible before it ends. That cherry on top is to stick the EU with the tab as part of a larger strategy of weakening the EU.

I find both of these arguments compelling and see merit in both of them, so, I am 50/50 on the prospects. Thus I believe that there is a 50% chance that Russia will take Odessa and the surrounding Odessa region. And this means that Russian territory will border on Moldova and its breakaway, pro-Russian region of Transnistria.

So suddenly, little Moldova—the poorest and one of the smallest (pop. 2.4 million) countries in Europe—matters an awful lot. This would explain why the EU is so obsessed with dominating it and forcing its globo-homo social agenda there.

Some readers might be wondering why I describe this country as half Russian in the headline, when in fact it is only about 8% Russian by blood and about 80% Romanian—which is basically the same thing as Moldovan. My reason is that, due to a 200-year period as part of Russia, Moldova has become culturally and linguistically as much Russian as it is Romanian, as I explain below.

I visited Moldova in mid-September at the invitation of pro-Orthodox church activists there, just prior to important parliamentary elections, to report on allegations by these activists that the Moldovan Orthodox Church—to which 95 percent of Moldovans belong—is being harshly repressed in a manner very similar to what is happening in Ukraine. I wrote about it in September: Moldova and EU viciously attack Orthodox Christianity. On that trip, I realized that Moldova—which nobody ever talks, thinks, or cares about—is actually historically fascinating in the context of the Russia-West conflict. So I decided to check in with our Moldovan Orthodox friends—who were such amiable, warm, and generous hosts in September—and ask what has transpired since September.

In two words, they say that the persecution continues unabated and that the illegal measures continue at strength, but that there is also reason for optimism.

Before I get into the details on that, I want to explain why Moldova becomes so strategically important if Russia takes the Odessa region. It has to do with the remarkable history of this out-of-the-way corner of southeastern Europe and the fact that it was fully part of the Russian and Soviet empires from 1812 to 1991 (178 yrs), with a brief interwar interregnum from 1917 -1940 when it was part of Romania. The details of this almost two-century period as part of Russia explain why it remains so pro-Russian to this day.

Russia wrested it away from the Ottoman Empire, where it had suffered under persecution and occupation for 270 years. Prior to that, it was a warlike, independent principality on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, going back to Roman times. It adopted Orthodox Christianity in the mid-14th century. Because it was on the borders of Byzantium, it had to fight relentlessly with its neighbors to protect its faith, like the Serbs, Bulgarians, Ruthenians and Romanians. This martial history of spilling blood for the faith explains in part why all of these countries are so devoted to it to this day, and are sympathetic to the Russians for eventually liberating them from servitude to Islam. The Moldovans fought for centuries with Hungary, Poland, the Golden Horde, until the Ottomans finally subdued them. So, Moldova—despite being ethnically the same as Romania, by blood,language, and faith—has not been an independent country for the last 500 years, save for the last 30, during which it has had trouble asserting a strong national identity.

Many forget that being a vassal on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire was a miserable lot. It meant attacks on their faith, repression of their religion, and having to contend with Ottoman slave hunters. In addition, they faced heavy taxes and constant exploitation. Thus, the Moldovans saw the Russians as welcome liberators and Orthodox brothers, not as hostile occupiers.

In addition, being on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire was usually an economic dead end, because the Ottomans did nothing to develop their vassals economically, and the vassals were very much restricted in their ability to do so, worrying more how to pay tribute and avoid the slave trader. The Russians, in contrast, encouraged economic development and facilitated it with investments, finance, and infrastructure. They also encouraged the flowering of the faith and built churches and cathedrals.

Nonetheless, at the time of the Russian revolution, Moldova was very much bucolic, with none of the trappings of an advanced economy. For the next 18 years, Moldova became part of Romania, which did almost nothing for it in terms of investments and economic development, because Romania at the time had its own problems. Enter Stalinist USSR in 1940, which, in its Soviet way, after the war, began massive investments in industry, infrastructure, electricity, education, and urban construction. The Soviets also encouraged full integration of the more far-flung republics with the motherland, which meant that many peoples from these smaller republics settled inside Russia or received educations there. There was much of intermarriage.

Because Moldova didn’t have the technical personnel to manage this modern industry, many Russians, Ukrainians, and other peoples of the Soviet Union settled in Moldova, sent there to develop it economically. They built factories, massive electrical plants, roads, universities, hospitals, and all the trappings of Soviet economic and cultural life. Moldovans were sent to the major Soviet cities for education and military service and often settled there. This was typical of Soviet ethnic engineering. They encouraged peoples from all over the Soviet Union to intermingle, and so you had a huge cross-pollination of all sorts of peoples from the various republics scattered throughout Russia and Ukraine—the two economic powerhouse republics.

Likewise, the Soviets tried to discourage national identity. During the fifty years that Moldova was part of the Soviet Union, Russian became the lingua franca - the language of commerce, education, and culture. Moldovan—which is basically the same as Romanian—was not taught in schools and was actively discouraged. The result is that today, Moldova is almost completely bilingual, with 90% of the population speaking Russian in addition to their native Moldovan (Romanian). Fluent Russian is pretty much universal in the urban centers, whereas in the agricultural provincial regions, Moldovan is more dominant, but most also speak good Russian.

And Moldovans are not just mostly conversant or fluent in Russian, but they also very much identify with Russian culture and think of themselves as really an extension of the greater Russian world. Their consumption of movies, books, media, and social media is, in fact, more Russian than Romanian, simply because the amount of content available in Russian is so much greater. They are happy with their affinity to the Russian language and do not see it as an unwelcome foreign intrusion. Their shared faith with Russia amplifies this, and the ties between the two churches are shared and strong, with the Moldovan faithful venerating Russian saints (Russia has more saints, by very large margin, than any other country) as their own, and benefiting greatly from the treasury of Russian spiritual content, again, in the Russian language.

Furthermore, the country is also divided in terms of their affinity for Russia based on whether the provinces lie in the East or West, with the eastern provinces being more Russian. This was very much driven home to us when we visited Transnistria, a long, narrow strip of land that runs north to south along Moldova’s eastern border with Ukraine. The atmosphere there reminded me very much of cities in eastern Ukraine.

The capital of Transnistria, Tiraspol is historically not Moldovan at all; rather, it is quintessentially Russian, founded by the legendary Russian general Suvorov in 1795 after thrashing the Turks. Walking around its charming central avenues, squares, and parks, it felt absolutely 100% Russian. There was nothing Moldovan about it, and one honestly felt as though one could be in Mariupol, Donetsk, or Crimea. A big surprise to us was that, at least as far as the center of Tiraspol goes, it seemed more prosperous, better maintained, and better planned than Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

So, you can see what is bound to happen if Russia occupies the Odessa region, which borders on Moldova.

Odessa region (like a US state)

It will be the Eastern Ukraine story all over again, with Russophile Moldovans saying: “We have a shared history going back 200 years. We speak the same language, we’re tightly connected culturally and by religion, we have family in Russia, and many Russians live here, and frankly, we don’t want to be hostile to Russia and want to be very friendly with it, if not even become a part of it again.” This is all the more true for Transnistria, which really thinks of itself as Russian, which it actually is (54% Russian, 29% Moldovan).

Now that you understand why this scenario is a real possibility, it becomes clear why the EU has made it a major priority to frog-march Moldova into the EU and do everything it can to destroy Russian influence there.

It should be clear that, while not sympathetic to what the EU is doing to Moldova, the Moldovans are quite hapless in the face of the European onslaught. I provided the details in the article I wrote in September, but it includes the full panoply of political, social, and cultural conquest. Most significantly, it is full-on censorship of any media that can be construed to be sympathetic to Russia or in the Russian language. It is a full-on political attack on the Moldovan Orthodox Church, which has been part of the Russian Orthodox world since 1812—and very enthusiastically so. It means having installed via wholesale electoral fraud a rabidly Russophobic and globalist political establishment—completely foreign to tradition-minded Moldovans—that enthusiastically pushes LGBT, feminism, abortion, atheism, etc. It means outright and thuggish harassment by secret police. It means heavy-handed propaganda in all media, schools, and universities denouncing Russia as evil incarnate.

I asked our Moldovan friends why the Moldovans are not more active in resisting this brutish takeover. They explained that Moldova never really developed a strong political, national identity, due to its many centuries as part of other empires. It is part ethnic, part cultural, and part historical. This just isn’t something that they are good at. In this, they resemble their Romanian co-ethnics, who also get kicked around by the EU like a second-class citizen.

So now as for what has transpired since September.

Our friend relate that the repression continues, but it’s not as bad as they had feared. In September, there were serious concerns among church leaders that the Moldovan Orthodox Church would be banned outright—as it has been in Ukraine—branded as a pro-Russian organization. This has not transpired, and it seems unlikely that the paladins in Brussels will attempt it. Attempts to bribe Romanian churches to join a fake, politically concocted jurisdiction (Bessarabian) have actually decreased. This phenomenon peaked in 2023–2024 and now seems to have almost entirely subsided, probably because the whole cockamamie scheme wasn’t very successful and wildly unpopular.

Six individuals from a rural parish we visited are being sued for physically tossing a priest out their church when he refused to leave, which caused some degree of worry among friends of Moldovan Orthodoxy in the West. The priest had taken a bribe from the fake jurisdiction and was trying to transfer the village church to it, and the stalwart villagers were having none of it. No one is in jail, and the lawsuit brought by the evicted priest seems weak. No one seems particularly worried about the situation.

The villagers roughing up the priest. Left, he is blocking the door, right, he is being hauled away. He subsequently holed up in the rectory, refusing to leave it too.

The censorship, harassment, political fraud, and Russophobic and globalist propaganda continue at full throttle. That’s not good news, but things have been this way for years now. With the shifting fortunes of the war in Ukraine, Moldovans may once again find a strong Russian and Orthodox friend directly on their border—something that could change a great deal. And so they struggle on.

I want to extend a special thanks to Victor Josu, a former Moldovan politician, author, and journalist who is the editor-in-chief of a Moldovan website called Tradition - The Moldovan Portal for Orthodox Journalists and Bloggers. He divides his time between Moscow and Chisinau, and does what he can to support Orthodoxy in Moldova. He was very generous with his time in helping to understand all this fascinating history.

He is an ethnic Moldovan, born and raised there. Speaking with him, I detected no difference between him and a Russian. No accent, and he looked physically Russian. He is such a typical example of what our group encountered when we visited Moldova: so many aspects of it seem so Russian that one honestly feels like one is in part of Russia when one is in the big cities.

Which is why I stand by my claim that Moldova is, for all intents and purposes, half Russian.