On September 28, the governing pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) in Moldova emerged victorious in the general election. It not only defeated the Russia-friendly Patriotic Electoral Bloc (PEB) but also confirmed a new geopolitical trend.
Across post-Soviet Eurasia, Russia is losing ground amid the continuing Russian aggression against Ukraine. Paradoxically, Moscow launched the large-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022 to assert primacy over what it calls its “near abroad”. More than three years later, it is painfully obvious that the strategy has failed.
Countries and leaders, whether democrats or old-school autocrats, are turning away from Moscow.
In Moldova, the stellar result for PAS defied predictions of a tight race. In the run-up to the elections, pro-Russian forces under the umbrella of PEB appeared to have momentum. Society was evenly split and economic uncertainty weighed on Moldova. However, the tide turned in late summer with old tensions between parties within the PEB resurfacing.
Concerted Russian efforts to sway the elections through information ops on social media – depicting PAS as a Western puppet threatening to drag the country into war against Russia and playing on fears of an economic downturn and annexation by Romania – backfired.
The Central Electoral Commission was given a reason to ban two overtly pro-Russian parties over allegations of illegal financing. The government also secured the extradition from Greece of fugitive oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, accused of playing a key role in the theft of $1bn from Moldovan banks.
The drama energised the Moldovan diaspora in the West, a strong supporter of the European Union. As a result, PEB and other opposition parties did well only in their strongholds in the Gagauz region of northern Moldova and Transnistria. PAS lost nearly 3 percent of its votes compared with 2021 but still came out on top with 50.2 percent vs 24.4 percent for PEB.
Had Russia refrained from interfering, Moscow-friendly forces probably would have stood a better chance of challenging PAS. The opposition missed an opportunity to make the elections about the economy and good governance. The moment it became about the EU vs Russia, PAS was at an advantage.
The party could claim credit for bringing Moldova closer to membership, having secured the opening of accession talks in June 2024 – a rather popular move. Almost two-thirds of Moldovans are in favour of joining the EU, which is highly unsurprising, given the role it plays as the country’s top trading partner and main destination for its exports. The pro-EU orientation of the population is irreversible, and even if PEB comes to power, it is unlikely to change course dramatically.
The move away from Russia is visible in the South Caucasus too. Armenia, which was historically highly dependent on Moscow’s strategic and economic aid, has reoriented itself westwards. Moscow abysmally failed to back its ally as Azerbaijan regained full control over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022.
The defeat created space for Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan to actually engage with both Azerbaijan and Turkiye. Currently, a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan is in the works as United States President Donald Trump is eager to see it across the finish line so he can claim credit.
In February 2024, Armenia suspended its participation in the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organisation. It also deepened security and defence cooperation with France.
For its part, Azerbaijan has had heightened tensions with Russia twice in recent years – in 2024 over a downed passenger jet over the Caspian Sea and this summer over the arrests of Azerbaijani nationals in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, which escalated into a major crisis.
Russia used to project regional influence by being the arbiter between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Now it has somehow managed to alienate both countries, while Turkiye and the US have stepped in to fill the vacuum.
In the South Caucasus, only Georgia appears to be leaning towards Moscow. But that is largely because the governing Georgian Dream party and its informal leader, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, have clashed with the EU over their tilt towards authoritarianism. Yet Georgia has not given up on the EU; it has just rejected its demands for democratisation, which under Trump’s influence have diminished in value anyway. Rather than tie itself fully to Russia, Tbilisi is trying to juggle among Europe, the US and, of course, China.
“Multivectoring” has long been popular in Central Asia too. There, the Ukraine war has also put governments on alert of Russian encroachment and given them an extra incentive to turn to China as a counterweight.
Beijing has been enlarging its economic footprint in the region. It is the top investor in Central Asia and its share in the overall trade of the five Central Asian countries combined has gone up from 17.7 percent in 2020 to 24.1 percent in 2024 with Turkmenistan (55 percent) and Kyrgyzstan (35 percent) ahead of the pack.
China has also stepped up diplomacy: The inaugural China-Central Asia summit took place in Xi’an in May 2023. The follow-up in Astana in June this year saw the signing of a treaty on “permanent good-neighbourliness, friendship, and cooperation”.
Beijing also focused on an increased role in the realm of security, traditionally an area reserved for Russia, including antiterrorism, border security and transnational crime. From the perspective of the regional states, this partnership could prove useful in fending off domestic challenges. The old adage about Russia providing the muscle and China providing the cash is not accurate any more.
Russia is obviously not happy, but it has been cornered, given its dependence on China, which has grown exponentially as a result of the war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions that followed. Putin’s presence at the military parade in Beijing on September 3 celebrating the 80th anniversary of the victory in World War II and elevating the Chinese role in the conflict is another example of how asymmetric the relationship has become. The leaders of the five Central Asian countries as well as Belarus were in attendance too.
That does not imply that Central Asians are now entirely in China’s pocket. As researchers of regional politics have pointed out in criticising the popular image of the new “Great Game”, there is a lot of local agency involved. Local players are in it for themselves, playing off the big guys to assert their autonomy and profit from these arrangements.
Europe is part of this story too. The EU accounts for about 23 percent of Central Asia’s combined trade. Imports of European-made goods that are then sent to Russia to bypass sanctions clearly explain some of the turnover but not all of it. EU diplomacy is picking up pace too. French President Emmanuel Macron made a widely publicised visit to Kazakhstan in 2024 to discuss, among other things, cooperation on civilian nuclear power. In April, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council head Antonio Costa attended the first EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine is having lasting consequences: for Russia itself, for the countries formerly under its rule and for Europe and China. We might be witnessing the end of the strong Russian hold over its “near abroad”. Russian influence will not evaporate in Moldova, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, but there is no doubt it is in sharp decline.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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