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France and Moldova have signed defence and economic co-operation agreements as part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for western countries to support Ukraine and its most vulnerable neighbours against Russian aggression.
The bilateral deals agreed on Thursday come a week after Moldova’s breakaway pro-Russia region of Transnistria asked for Moscow’s help, in a call that echoed separatists in the Ukraine region of eastern Donbas at the outset of the conflict in 2014. Russian officials have in recent days compared Moldova’s pro-European leadership to that of Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine has had severe knock-on effects for Moldova, a small landlocked country bordering Ukraine and Romania that has had tense relations with Moscow since a secessionist conflict in the 1990s. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Moldova’s neighbour accelerated the country’s western push and the nation was granted EU candidate status alongside Ukraine in June 2022.
“Today the frontline is Ukraine in the battle for Europe, for all that we hold dear and defend. Our shared security is at stake,” Moldovan President Maia Sandu said in Paris on Thursday. “If the aggressor is not stopped, he will keep going, and the frontline will keep moving closer. Closer to us. Closer to you.”
Macron vowed that France would maintain “unwavering support” for the “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Moldova.
The defence accord includes placing a French military representative in Moldova, as well as training programmes and arms supplies. Paris has also pledged to invest in Moldovan energy projects, natural resources and rail transport.
Macron’s reaching out to Moldova comes after his statement last month that a western troop deployment to Ukraine should not be ruled out — comments that prompted quick rebuffs from his Nato allies.
Still, the French president has continued his diplomatic efforts to bolster support for Ukraine. During a visit to Prague on Tuesday, he said France would join a Czech-led initiative to buy additional ammunition for Ukraine from non-European countries. Czech President Petr Pavel said “a [Nato] training mission in Ukraine would not represent any kind of violation of international law”.
Moldova started negotiating a bilateral agreement with France in 2022, but its completion should be viewed in the context of “France’s leadership role on the need to scale up support for Ukraine”, said former Moldovan foreign minister Nicu Popescu. “Moldova is also part of that effort.”
Moldova is a neutral state and its ability to boost its military is constrained by very limited financial resources. In December, the country signed a contract with France to acquire a radar system from Thales. It also increased its defence budget by 70 per cent to €85mn last year, as well as drawing upon €40mn from the European peace facility, a financial assistance programme.
Increased French support to Moldova “shows us that Europe finally understands that we can only be safe if our neighbours are safe”, said Siegfried Mureșan, a Romanian lawmaker who chairs the European parliament’s delegation to Moldova.
Transnistria’s call for Russian help, he said, was a reminder of what could happen next if Russia won in Ukraine. But the situation was “more stable than we are tempted to believe — as long as Ukraine keeps the Russian forces far away from Transnistria”, he added.
After Transnistria’s appeal, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Moldova risked “following in the footsteps of the regime in Kyiv”. He accused the government in Chișinău of “blocking everything Russian” and putting “serious economic pressure” on Transnistria.
Transnistria has a population of less than half a million, of which around 200,000 are Russian. Moscow has kept a military base with about 1,300 soldiers within the territory after the rebels it backed in the early 1990s declared independence from Chișinău following a secessionist war.
President Vladimir Putin separately met with Yevgenia Gutsul, governor of Gagauzia, another pro-Russian region in southern Moldova, to hear her complaints about the Chișinău government on Tuesday.
Russian forces would only be able to take control of Transnistria if they occupied the Ukrainian port of Odesa and surrounding territory. Russia has fired missiles and drones at Odesa repeatedly since 2022, including on Wednesday when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was touring the city with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, but so far has not attempted to occupy the city.
Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Riga
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