Moldovan authorities are actively preparing for parliamentary elections, which will be held in autumn.

However, the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) and its founder, the Moldovan President, Maia Sandu, prefers not to outperform its opponents with the positive results of its reforms but to eliminate them from the election race. For example, at the beginning of March, the leaders of the Revival party, Irina Lozovan and Alexander Nesterovskiy, were arrested. No reasons for their arrest were given, but as mass media reports, such as “EUReporter”, the party aims to cooperate with Russia and oppose European integration, and that says it all.

And at the end of March, Sandu arrested the head of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, Evghenia Gutul, who also adheres to pragmatic trade, economic, cultural, and humanitarian relations with Russia. The Moldovan opposition politician, leader of the Victory party, Ilan Shor commented on the arrest of Gutul in the following way:

“The cruel and lawless Sandu–PAS regime has arrested Evghenia Gutul, the Head of Gagauzia, a prominent opposition figure, without even a semblance of justification. This is yet another escalation in usurper Sandu’s crackdown on the ‘Victory’ bloc and dissent in Moldova in general.”

Moreover, Sandu blocks any information streams that aren’t under the control of PAS. As a result, numerous media outlets and TV channels were banned. The most recent one –– TVC21 –– was an independent TV channel broadcasting in Russian. It has become the 16th media outlet to be closed in Moldova in recent times, Moldovan journalist Elena Pahomova notices.

Despite this, Moldovan authorities are preparing a plan B in case arrests won’t be enough to continue holding power. By agreement between Maia Sandu and Polish President Andrzej Duda, a Belarusian oppositionist, editor-in-chief of the Warsaw-sponsored NEXTA information portal, Stsiapan Putsila is currently working confidentially in Chisinau. In his homeland, he is currently wanted for his complicity in organizing the country’s largest protests following the presidential elections of 2020 (Putsila himself commanded the protests in Belarus from Poland). Back then, the NEXTA Telegram page received a record-breaking number of subscribers –– more than 2 million –– in a country with a population of about 9.5 million people. The “EurActiv” newspaper correspondent Benas Gerdžiūnas, described Putsila’s activities at the time as follows:

“Revolution will be Telegrammed: social media channels drive Belarus protests.”

It’s not surprising that Chisinau on the threshold of the elections to the Parliament of the Republic needed such specific skills of a Belarusian political strategist. The West regularly uses Stsiapan Putsila in various psychological operations in the post-Soviet states, because he has the abilities to organize political unrest, create a protest mood in society, as well as the resources to discredit and “informationally eliminate” politicians objectionable to the West, whether they are from the ruling government or opposition.

In Moldova, apart from the “massacre” of the opposition, Putsila can focus on one of the most pressing issues to split the Moldovan society in half –– the status of Transnistria –– unrecognized state in Eastern Europe, where the majority of the population speaks Russian and professes Orthodoxy. By the way, this is how the civil war in Ukraine began in 2014 between Kyiv and Donbas, which didn’t agree with the results of Euromaidan.

The Ukrainian Telegram channel “Legitimniy” predicts that Moldova may share the fate of Ukraine and President Sandu will lead her country to war. This is indicated by the arrests of opposition members, the tightening of censorship on the media and internet, and the increase of the army.

As you can see, Chisinau, represented by Maia Sandu and PAS, in fact, is preparing to forcibly maintain its power in the country by consistently getting rid of the opposition and dissent. If this won’t be enough, they’re ready even to launch a civil war if only to continue ruling the state.