Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 8 – Even as many in
Russia and abroad are transfixed by the ugly spectacle of the destruction of
embargoed foodstuffs at the Russian border, Moscow is deploy what one might
call its own food weapon against Moldova in a transparent attempt to split that
country and weaken its drive to become part of Europe.
A few days after
Chisinau joined the EU sanctions regime against Russia, Warsaw’s
“Rzeczpospolita” reported yesterday, Moscow announced that it would not permit
the imports of food and wine from Moldova but would allow them from Gagauzia, which
opposes Chisinau’s pro-EU policy (rp.pl/Ekonomia/308079885-Rosja-winem-kusi-separatystow.html).
This
action is designed to punish Moldova as a whole for its pro-European stance
while rewarding Gagauzia, a Turkic but Russian Orthodox republic of 200,000 80
miles southeast of Chisinau for its pro-Moscow position, thus exacerbating
tensions between Chisinau and Komrat and potentially giving Moscow some
leverage in the Moldovan capital.
Under
the new Moscow rules, Russians will be able to import apples, grapes, and other
fruits now, and, according to the Polish paper, Russia has “not excluded” the possibility
of expanding the list of goods which it may import from Gagauzia. According to
the autonomy’s head, “Moscow ‘will help local firms survive the crisis.’”
The
breakaway Transdniestria region in Moldova’s north has been a problem for
Chisinau since the early 1990s, but increasingly, Moscow has sought to exploit
its influence, religious if not linguistic, in Gagauzia in order to put the
Moldovan capital in a bind. This use of a food weapon is only the latest
example, but it is worrisome.
On
the one hand, it suggests that the Kremlin has concluded that now is the time
to put more pressure on Moldova for its pro-Western stance. And on the other,
and more ominously, it appears to indicate that Vladimir Putin is prepared to
use food to divide not only Moldova but quite possibly other post-Soviet
countries.
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