Sept. 28, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Listen to this article\u00a0\u00b7 10:15 min\u00a0Learn more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia has\u00a0flown<\/a>\u00a0drones into Poland and Romania,\u00a0sent<\/a>\u00a0fighter jets into Estonian airspace,\u00a0buzzed<\/a>\u00a0a German Navy frigate in the Baltic Sea and backed an\u00a0aggressive shadow campaign<\/a>\u00a0to sway this weekend\u2019s election in Moldova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s just in the past three weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The frenzy of Russian action has prompted alarm in European capitals, where officials are worried that Moscow is stepping up its antagonism of Europe, as U.S. resolve to counter Russia recedes under President Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European jitters extended to Scandinavia this week. Airports in Denmark and Norway\u00a0shut down<\/a>\u00a0because of unexplained drone activity. Denmark\u2019s prime minister said she couldn\u2019t rule out Russia as the culprit. The Kremlin denied involvement and dismissed European concerns about the other recent episodes as \u201cexalted hysteria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But perhaps no country in Europe, apart from Ukraine, is feeling the specter of Russian power at the moment more acutely than Moldova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A parliamentary election there on Sunday could decide whether Moldova, a nation of 2.4 million and a former Soviet republic, continues its path to the European Union under President Maia Sandu or slips back into Moscow\u2019s orbit. Russia has taken aim at Ms. Sandu\u2019s pro-Europe party, unleashing a barrage<\/a> of influence operations to undermine her government that has intensified with the approach of the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Sandu hit back in a dramatic speech this week after the Moldovan authorities detained<\/a> 74 people and claimed to have disrupted a plot to incite unrest coordinated by criminal elements from Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Kremlin believes we are all for sale, that we are too small to resist, that we are not a country but a territory,\u201d President Sandu told Moldovans on Monday. \u201cBut Moldova is our home, and our home is not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, responded by accusing her of suppressing the votes of Moldovans who want closer relations with Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts viewed the spate of Russian moves as provocations to probe for potential weaknesses and assess Europe\u2019s responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Want to stay updated on what\u2019s happening in Eastern Europe and Northern Europe?<\/strong> Sign up for Your Places: Global Update<\/p>\n\n\n\n , and we\u2019ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere does seem to be a feeling that something has shifted,\u201d said Eric Rubin, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington and former U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria. \u201cI would suspect that this is a testing phase.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, days after the drone incursion into Poland, Italian F-35 fighter pilots scrambled over the Gulf of Finland to intercept Russian MiG-31 warplanes that made a 12-minute incursion into Estonian airspace. The Italians got close enough to see the Russian pilots wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Russian jets, which had disabled their radio transponder devices, were intercepted as soon as they entered Estonia\u2019s air space, said Col. Gaetano Farina, the Italian commander of the NATO task force patrolling the airspace. The two Italian jets rocked their wings, an internationally known maneuver to signal that they were intercepting the Russians. He said the Russian pilots then allowed the Italian planes to escort them back into international airspace and over the Russian border in Kaliningrad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Russian fighters were in Estonia\u2019s airspace \u2014 about five miles deep, at one point \u2014 the Italian pilots assessed what weapons the Russian jets were carrying, Colonel Farina said. He said they were air-to-air missiles, not bombs, a distinction that Estonian officials have said led them to conclude that an attack on the country\u2019s population was highly unlikely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia has denied that it left international airspace, infuriating Estonian officials, who have warned that Russia\u2019s invasion might not stop at Ukraine. Estonia shares a 183-mile border with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Already, faint fault lines have begun to emerge in Europe over how to respond to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This week, Rados\u0142aw Sikorski, Poland\u2019s foreign minister, threatened military action against any Russian aircraft that strayed into Polish airspace in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany\u2019s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, however, said shooting down Russian planes would be unhelpful and warned fellow NATO countries not to fall into a Russian \u201cescalation trap\u201d set by President Vladimir V. Putin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPrudence is not cowardice, but rather responsibility toward your own country and toward peace in Europe,\u201d Mr. Pistorius said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia\u2019s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the United Nations on Saturday, said that any aggression against his country \u201cwould be met with a decisive response.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nervousness in Europe stems in part from questions about whether the United States, the guarantor of Western Europe\u2019s security since World War II, would respond to a Russian attack under Mr. Trump, a longtime skeptic of NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Trump lifted the spirits of European leaders this week by\u00a0calling Mr. Putin\u2019s forces a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and saying Ukraine could take back its territory with Europe\u2019s help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Trump also said NATO countries should down Russian aircraft that violate their airspace. But when pressed on whether he would back a NATO member that did so, he said, \u201cThat depends on the circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n European allies want more unwavering support than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u017dygimantas Pavilionis, Lithuania\u2019s former ambassador to the United States and now a member of his country\u2019s Parliament, said Mr. Trump\u2019s warm welcome<\/a> of Mr. Putin during a summit in Alaska last month led only to escalation from Moscow, with increased missile attacks on Ukraine and now incursions into NATO territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI always defend America,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I need some action from my beloved America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Moldova, Ms. Sandu\u2019s pro-Western political movement has prioritized accelerating the nation\u2019s path to the European Union, holding a referendum that approved E.U. membership last year and pressing through reforms to qualify for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Sandu, a graduate of Harvard\u2019s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has angered Moscow with her pro-Europe stance and aggressive moves to end the Kremlin\u2019s longstanding influence in Moldova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia sees the elections as an opportunity to damage one of the most pro-Western leaders in what the Kremlin views as its rightful sphere of influence, analysts said. The small nation has become the latest, most active front in Russia\u2019s yearslong effort to denigrate Western democracy and promote Moscow-friendly leaders. Moscow operated similar online influence campaigns during recent elections in Germany and France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though President Sandu is not on the ballot, her party risks losing its majority. That would deal a blow to the E.U. and usher in political uncertainty that Moscow could exploit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine reduced Moscow\u2019s influence across other post-Soviet countries, including Moldova, where the government accelerated its march toward the E.U. and broke economic ties with Russia, said Anastasia Pociumban, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Moscow sees the election as an opening to reverse the trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRussia is weaker now as a geopolitical actor, but wants to retain Moldova in its sphere of influence,\u201d Ms. Pociumban said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Sandu\u2019s government has accused the Kremlin of planning to spend 100 million euros to finance political campaigns, spread disinformation and organize protests to challenge the outcome of the vote. In previous votes, Moldovan authorities have accused Russia-linked networks of offering voters bribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of the efforts, the Moldovan government has asserted, have been funneled through Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan businessman sheltering in Russia. His efforts<\/a> to prop up pro-Moscow politicians in the country have vexed the leadership in Chisinau, the capital, for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Sandu has warned that Moldova\u2019s independence is under threat, arguing that a victory for pro-Russia politicians in the election could turn Moldova into a staging ground for Moscow to invade Ukraine\u2019s neighboring Odesa region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A day after Ms. Sandu\u2019s speech, Russia\u2019s foreign intelligence service issued a statement claiming that European forces were planning to invade and occupy Moldova to enforce a \u201cEuro-democracy\u201d dictatorship led by Ms. Sandu following the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Western analysts saw the statement as Russia projecting its own possible intentions onto Europe and stoking fears among Moldovan voters of being dragged into the Ukraine war. Russia-linked accounts online claimed falsely to have photo evidence of French forces already arriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kremlin denied Ms. Sandu\u2019s accusations and accused her of silencing the legitimate views of pro-Russia Moldovans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia\u2019s torrent of disinformation online has sought to portray Ms. Sandu\u2019s government as corrupt, autocratic and bellicose. It included outlandish lies, such as that Ms. Sandu schemed to acquire sperm donations from celebrities, promoted L.G.B.T. issues on the payroll of billionaire George Soros, and declared a military emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to NewsGuard<\/a>, a company that tracks disinformation, posts about these narratives have garnered at least 17 million views since July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Pociumban said Moscow\u2019s main message has been that Ms. Sandu\u2019s government is a dictatorship run by the E.U. that is risking chaos and repeats of Ukraine and Georgia, where opposing the Kremlin\u2019s will led to war and decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oleg Matveychev, a member of Russia\u2019s Parliament from the ruling United Russia party, encapsulated the Kremlin\u2019s messaging, warning<\/a> that Moldova\u2019s vote will decide whether the country becomes a \u201csecond Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moldova\u2019s economy has struggled amid the war in neighboring Ukraine, with the pro-Russian opposition looking to harness those economic woes as a protest vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe main aim of Russia in Moldova currently is to use these local contradictions and problems, which are quite numerous, to slow down Moldova\u2019s integration with Europe,\u201d said Maksim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. He said Moscow wants to drag Moldova back into the \u201cgeopolitical gray zone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul Sonne<\/a>\u00a0is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin\u2019s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Schwirtz<\/a>\u00a0is the global intelligence correspondent for The Times based in London.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lara Jakes<\/a>, a Times reporter based in Rome, reports on conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Steven Lee Myers<\/a>\u00a0covers misinformation and disinformation from San Francisco. Since joining The Times in 1989, he has reported from around the world, including Moscow, Baghdad, Beijing and Seoul.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n See more on: Russia-Ukraine War<\/a>, North Atlantic Treaty Organization<\/a>, Vladimir Putin<\/a>, Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" European officials fear that Moscow is escalating its antagonism of Europe as U.S. support recedes. A focus of worry now: election interference in Moldova. By\u00a0Paul Sonne, Michael Schwirtz, Lara Jakes\u00a0and\u00a0Steven Lee Myers Sept. 28, 2025 Leer en espa\u00f1ol Listen to this article\u00a0\u00b7 10:15 min\u00a0Learn more Russia has\u00a0flown\u00a0drones into Poland and Romania,\u00a0sent\u00a0fighter jets into Estonian airspace,\u00a0buzzed\u00a0a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16739"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16742,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16739\/revisions\/16742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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A Trying Moment for NATO<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Moldova Crossroads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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