As Moldova’s integration process with the European Union (EU) accelerates, this orientation appears to be transforming the country’s fragile internal power balances –particularly along the Gagauzia axis– into a deep fault line of tension. The discourse of rule of law and institutional convergence aligned with EU norms clashes with Gagauzia’s identity-based demands for autonomy and its multilayered relations with Russia; this is claimed to have created a “legitimacy crisis” in which the judiciary is instrumentalized and securitized reflexes come to the fore.
Criminal proceedings against elected leaders, detentions targeting the executive branch, and economic sanctions confront the central authority’s integration strategy with local perceptions of “assimilation,” while Russia-linked information operations and symbolic diplomatic maneuvers intertwine domestic polarization with regional rivalry. Consequently, the balance between democratic legitimacy and the security-based preservation of territorial integrity has become fragile, and the historical accumulation of distrust visible in Transnistria and Gagauzia heavily constrains Moldova’s EU integration process.
Relations between Gagauzia and Moldova have recently become sharply strained alongside the country’s EU accession process, and this tension has deepened as Gagauzia, which holds autonomous status, has been increasingly targeted by the central authority due to its pro-Russian stance. In particular, the government of the Party of Action and Solidarity (Partidul Acțiune și Solidaritate – PAS) led by Maia Sandu has pursued a centralizing line by turning judicial processes against elected representatives in Gagauzia into instruments of political pressure. In this regard, the conviction of Evgenia Hutsul, who was elected by the public and holds immunity guaranteed by law, has become emblematic of the instrumentalization of the principle of the rule of law to suppress political opposition; for Hutsul’s removal from office has not only deepened the legal legitimacy crisis but also sharpened existing fault lines within the country’s social fabric.[i] Indeed, this situation has revived the historical distrust between the central state and localized identity-based autonomous areas, laying the ground for the resurgence of separatist tendencies in regions such as Transnistria and Gagauzia, while making voter participation increasingly costly in the face of authoritarian tendencies of the government, thereby casting doubt on the legitimacy of the democratic process.
The central authority’s coercive instruments have not been limited to the judiciary; economic and institutional sanctions have also been employed. For example, the announcement on 5 September 2025 by Dorin Recean, the Prime Minister of Moldova, that the financial accounts of Irina Vlah, former President of Gagauzia, would be frozen illustrates the economic pressure component of a strategy to neutralize opposition actors ahead of the upcoming 28 September 2025 elections. Vlah, who is the former President of Gagauzia and currently leads the Republican Party ‘Heart of Moldova’ (Partidul Republican “Inima Moldovei” – PRIM), was placed on the sanctions list by Canada after joining blocs associated with Ilan Șor, marking the first time Western actors acknowledged her connection to the “Șor network,” which was followed by the initiation of a domestic process to confiscate her assets. These developments reveal the central government’s tendency to instrumentalize judicial and financial institutions in political struggles, while reinforcing the perception that the institutional safeguards of democratic competition have been dismantled.[ii]
Another dimension of the pressure targets Gagauzia’s executive bodies. The detention on 10 September 2025 of Irina Konstantinova and other members of the Gagauz Executive Committee during a protest in Bălți demonstrated that the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) government has entered a new phase in its strategy to intimidate opposition local elites. The initiation of criminal proceedings against Konstantinova, who has served in public office for many years, is perceived as the political instrumentalization of the principles of the rule of law and undermines the symbolic legitimacy of autonomy.[iii] The detention during the same protest of senior Gagauz officials such as Victor Petrov, Ivan Kolioglo, Vyaçeslav Dragoi, Sergey İbrişim, and Ivan Kretsu constituted a concrete manifestation of central pressure on the Gagauz bureaucracy; allegations that these detentions were retaliation for Gagauzia’s declaration of 2025 as the “80th Anniversary of Victory Against Fascism” revealed that the historical memory-based rift between the center and the autonomous region has been elevated to an institutional level.[iv]
The political crisis created by this repressive approach has become symbolized around the personal case of Evgenia Hutsul. Having been sentenced on 5 August 2025 to seven years in prison on charges of illegally financing the Șor Party, Hutsul called on 12 August 2025 from prison for resistance against the Maia Sandu administration’s “dictatorship,” turning the Gagauzia crisis into the central axis of opposition in Moldovan politics. In a message read out in front of the prison by Yuriy Kuznetsov, Hutsul emphasized that she would defend the right of every vote cast for her and called on Gagauz, Moldovan, Ukrainian, Russian, and Bulgarian peoples to unite; the ongoing protests chanting “Freedom for Hutsul” and “Sandu Resign” have turned the prison into a symbolic site of political confrontation between the central authority and Gagauz autonomy.[v] Hutsul’s lawyers Gonzalo Boye and William Julier, meanwhile, stated that the trial lacked impartiality and that its aim was to intimidate the Gagauz people, emphasizing that the process is clearly political in nature.[vi]
Nevertheless, the administration in Chișinău has sought to bring the people of Gagauzia closer to the center through education, infrastructure, and social investments, with the aim of integrating the region into EU norms. At a teachers’ forum held on 8 September 2025, projects announced by Ivan Duminica included the provision of 1,400 textbooks and 2,800 workbooks to 56 kindergartens in Gagauzia, the in-service training of 74 Gagauz language teachers, and the introduction of Gagauz language and literature courses to 1,351 students. Teachers sent for vocational training in Romania, students participating in a Romanian language camp in Iași, school renovations supported by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank, and a 6.5 million lei fund allocated for free school lunches in canteens are presented as tangible benefits of European integration.[vii] However, these investments can also be interpreted as “assimilation” in Gagauzia due to the growing perception of political pressure from the center.
In this context, the Gagauz administration has taken symbolic steps to revive relations with Russia on the international stage. The visit on 9 September 2025 of a Russian diplomatic delegation led by Oleg Ozerov to Vulcănești reiterated Gagauzia’s message of strategic partnership with Moscow. During the meetings attended by Ilya Uzun and Victor Petrov, the laying of flowers at Russian monuments symbolized the Gagauz people’s determination to pursue comprehensive cooperation with Russia; this also made visible the divergence in foreign policy orientations between Chișinău and the autonomous administration.[viii]
All these developments indicate that Moldova’s EU integration process has turned into a serious legitimacy crisis in the context of Gagauzia. As stated in the report titled “Russian Influence Assets Converge on Moldovan Elections” published by Recorded Future, experts from Insikt Group asserted that, ahead of the 28 September 2025 elections, numerous Russia-linked influence operations aim to derail Moldova’s EU accession process and destabilize the elections.[ix] It has been extensively documented that networks such as Operation Overload, R-FBI, and Operation Undercut seek to discredit Maia Sandu and manipulate voters through fear of war and economic collapse; that the Evrazia network and the Moldova24 channel disseminate anti-Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) content; and that the Pravda Moldova site within the Portal Kombat ecosystem conveys pro-Russian content to Romanian-speaking audiences.
The report emphasizes that the main objective of these operations is not necessarily to produce a clear pro-Russian majority but rather to reduce voter turnout, fragment the pro-EU bloc, and render the legitimacy of the outcome disputable. Warnings that Moscow could activate scenarios of protest violence and instability in Russian-speaking regions such as Transnistria and Gagauzia in the face of unfavorable results have prompted the Chișinău administration to adopt more security-oriented measures. However, when this security-oriented approach combines with the violation of autonomy rights and the criminalization of local representatives in Gagauzia, it distances Moldova’s EU integration process from a foundation of democratic legitimacy and exposes the country to the risks of both internal instability and external interference.
In the near term, Moldova’s EU integration process appears likely to further strain the fragile center–periphery balances and push relations with Gagauzia to a critical threshold. The continued use by the Maia Sandu administration’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) government of judicial, financial, and security apparatuses as tools of political pressure against Gagauz elites could lead to the de facto erosion of the region’s current autonomy regime. In such a case, the ongoing removal of elected representatives from office, confiscation of economic resources, and waves of detentions targeting the executive branch would further weaken perceptions of the central state’s legitimacy in Gagauzia; this would simultaneously erode the democratic process by lowering electoral participation rates and strengthen tendencies toward passive resistance and civil disobedience at the local level.
In parallel, the intensification of Russia-linked information operations and Gagauzia’s increased symbolic engagements with Moscow could intertwine domestic polarization with regional geopolitical rivalry and trigger separatist tendencies. Under this scenario, similar to the dynamics of the frozen conflict in Transnistria, Gagauzia’s likelihood of becoming a lasting “geopolitical grey zone” for Moldova’s sovereign integrity would increase. Such a situation could prompt the EU to prioritize security concerns over rule of law reforms in its enlargement strategy toward Moldova; this, in turn, would risk shifting the EU integration process from a framework of technical harmonization to one centered on crisis management, thereby undermining the country’s long-term democratic consolidation objectives.
When all these dynamics are considered together, Moldova’s EU integration process appears to have evolved into a multilayered challenge that not only entails institutional and legal alignment but also redefines the country’s fragile internal balances. The Gagauzia case stands out as the primary arena where the central state’s security-driven reflexes clash with identity-based autonomy demands, carrying the potential to erode the legitimacy foundations of this integration process; while practices such as judicial instrumentalization, economic sanctions, and criminal proceedings against elected representatives reinforce the perception that the central authority is using EU norms not to build societal consensus but to suppress opposition, thereby weakening the institutional safeguards of democratic competition. Meanwhile, the reinforcement of anti-central resistance narratives in Gagauzia by Russia-linked information operations lays the ground for the convergence of regional geopolitical rivalry with domestic polarization, increasing the risk that the process will shift from technical reform and democratic consolidation to a security-prioritized crisis management framework. This, in turn, carries the potential –if tensions deepen– to create a frozen conflict zone similar to Transnistria, thereby casting uncertainty over both Moldova’s territorial integrity and the future of its relations with the EU.
[i] Nikita Zverev, “Zhestokim Prigovorom Bashkanu Gagauzii Pravyashchiy Rezhim v Moldove Reshil Napugat Vsekh Nesoglasnykh”, KP, https://www.md.kp.media/daily/27734/5124103/, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[ii] Irina Kuteleva, “V Moldove Zablokiruyut Scheta Eks-Lidera Gagauzii, Kotoraya Popala Pod Sanktsii Kanady”, Evropeskaya Pravda, https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/news/2025/09/7/7219599/, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[iii] Sergey Pyatakov, “Chleny Ispolkoma Gagauzii Byli Zaderzhany na Aktsii Protesta v Beltsakh”, Sputnik, https://md.sputniknews.ru/20250910/chleny-ispolkoma-gagauzii-byli-zaderzhany-na-aktsii-protesta-v-beltsakh-66258712.html, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[iv] Igor Krudu, “Politsiya Zaderzhala Yeshche 5 Chlenov Rukovodstva Gagauzii”, KP, https://www.md.kp.media/online/news/6564561/, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[v] Vadim Denisov, “Gutsul Prizvala Prodolzhit Borbu s Diktaturoy Sandu i Yeye Partii”, TASS, https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/24763561, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[vi] “Advokaty Zayavili, Chto za Tyuremnym Srokom Gutsul Stoit Zhelaniye Vlastey Moldovy Podchinit Gagauziyu”, Belta, https://belta.by/world/view/advokaty-zajavili-chto-za-tjuremnym-srokom-gutsul-stoit-zhelanie-vlastej-moldovy-podchinit-gagauziju-736766-2025/, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[vii] Sandu Uguryanu, “Skolko i Chego Poluchili Shkoly i Detsady Gagauzii”, Nokta, https://nokta.md/skolko-i-chego-poluchili-shkoly-i-detsady-gagauzii/, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[viii] “Posol Rossiyskoy Federatsii v Moldove Posetil Gagauziyu”, Moldovainform, https://moldovainform.md/ru/news/20250909/69470.html, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
[ix] “Russian Influence Assets Converge on Moldovan Elections”, Recorded Future, https://www.recordedfuture.com/research/russian-influence-assets-converge-on-moldovan-elections, (Access Date: 13.09.2025).
