Based on the materials of the roundtable of the Institute for Global Politics “Russian Authoritarianism as a Threat to Global Security”

“We Should Realize Once and for All that Russian Totalitarianism, Expansionism and Imperialism Can Be Stopped only if They Are Defeated in This War Against Ukraine”

I think that from the very beginning we have to combine Russian totalitarianism with Russian imperialism and expansionism, because this is a threat that has been accompanying Russia for at least the last two centuries. Please, be reminded that in 1866, Fyodor Tyutchev, one of the Russian poets, wrote that Russia cannot be understood by reason alone. In other words, “umom Rossiyu ne ponyat/by the mind Russia cannot be understood”.
More than 150 years later, this statement of the Russian poet remains relevant. We had a spark of trust and hope that Russia would change in the 1990s, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. At that moment, all democratic communities and states hoped that Russia would also become democratic. But I will also say that I, as a citizen of the Republic of Moldova, who returned home in 1992 after graduating from the military academy, immediately went to fight for my homeland, for my village and my parents. So, this Russian totalitarianism was always present.
1992, 2008 – Georgia, 2014– Ukraine, and the active phase of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. If we look back, we will again see that Russia has always been like this and, unfortunately, will continue to be like this. And the people of Russia are emancipated, or, I can’t remember the word that the authorities in Russia call it… This is how people actually follow their government.
I remember in the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin, the most liberal president of Russia, was asked where the borders of the Russian Federation were after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He answered quite directly – along the borders of the Soviet Union… That is, they never thought of Russia as a modern state, did not consider all the countries to be independent states today.
A few months ago, Vladimir Putin stated quite bluntly that all the people, all the lands where Russian soldiers have ever set foot in history are their territory. So, I think we have to realize once and for all that Russian totalitarianism, expansionism and imperialism can only be stopped if they are defeated in this war against Ukraine.
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We see that in the Republic of Moldova, even if we do not have military options on our territory, we are also at war. We are waging a proxy war with Russia and are bearing its burden in the economic and social spheres. They, the Russian, are using all means, not just the military ones. I believe that now, when we have upcoming elections on September 22, the support of the international community is very important for us. We have to hold these elections properly, because otherwise, in my opinion, Russia, using all the narratives, is trying to drag us into this war.

One example. A few days ago, Maria Zakharova, whom everyone knows, mentioned that Western countries are arming the Republic of Moldova. They are supplying weapons to the Republic of Moldova only because they want to drag it into NATO. You know, from my personal point of view as a military man, a brigadier general (retired) with many years of experience and education, our country is mostly neutral, which was imposed in the early 1990s by the Russian Federation and which has always been violated by the same Russian Federation, which has kept its military personnel, its troops in our country and has been subordinating a third of our territory for more than 30 years.

We cannot use this for our security. We see what neutrality has done to Ukraine. And now we, I personally believe that we should pursue a policy of rapprochement with NATO. And the international community should also support this desire of the people, even if we still don’t have public support or a lot of public support for integration into NATO. And finally, I think it’s very important that we stand together against Russian authoritarianism, totalitarianism, expansionism.

And the struggle that Ukraine is fighting now is not only its struggle. No! This is also our struggle, the struggle of Moldovans, a small country with not very clear or good institutions, with fragile democracy, but which wants to be part of the democratic world, the free world. This is a struggle that must be fought together, and the victory of Ukrainians and Moldovans in this war, in my opinion, will be a big step forward in the fight against Russian totalitarianism.

Vitalie Marinuta,
Moldovan politician and military officer,
Minister of Defense of the Republic of Moldova (2009-2014)