Moldovans Welcome Fleeing Ukrainians, but Some Pack Their Own Bags, Too

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/world/europe/ukraine-moldova-russia-invasion.html

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PURCARI, Moldova — Angela Dragan, a chef at a famous Moldovan winery, has spent the past two weeks making food for the exodus of refugees fleeing the invasion in neighboring Ukraine, and has hosted at least 10 of them in her home. There but for the grace of God, she reckons.

But grace can be fleeting, and so every day, Ms. Dragan brings her passport to work, ready to join the exodus if necessary. For now, she said, she won’t do so “for moral reasons — refugees are coming and we need to help them.” But if the Russians advance toward Moldova? “We could leave at any moment,” she said.

Across Moldova, a small, poor post-Soviet democracy next to Ukraine’s southwestern border, Moldovans are watching Russia’s advance on nearby Odessa — and packing their bags, just in case. The war has already profoundly affected Moldova: Per capita, it has welcomed more Ukrainian refugees than any other country, and many ordinary Moldovans have housed refugees in their apartments. Now, some Moldovans are wondering if and when they should join a westward exodus that is already Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since the end of World War II.

“I have people who ask me every day: ‘If I go, where should I go?’” said Alina Radu, the editor of Ziarul de Garda, an investigative newspaper in Moldova. “And I have people who want to see examples of people staying, because they are afraid.”

Russia has said nothing about invading Moldova, and Belarus, its close ally, has retracted a map, shown in a briefing last week by the Belarusian president, that was marked with arrows suggesting a planned Russian advance into Moldova.

But the events of the last month in Ukraine, coupled with the weak state of the Moldovan military and the country’s turbulent history, have persuaded some Moldovans that anything is possible, and that it is just common sense to be considering an exit strategy.

A Russian regiment is already stationed on Moldovan soil, in the breakaway, Russian-backed territory of Transnistria, where secessionists took control after a war in 1992. Moldova is closer to the Ukrainian front lines than any other country not itself involved in the war. And Moldova has a long history of being dominated by foreign powers, including the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

For many Moldovans, it is easy to imagine the invading Russian armies in Ukraine, currently just 100 miles east of Moldova, advancing westward to Transnistria — or beyond.

“We’ve been a couple of times swallowed by the Russians,” said Elena Ivanesi, 39, who fled Moldova on the first day of the war in Ukraine with her husband and two children, fearing a new Russian invasion. Ms. Ivanesi spoke by phone from a friend’s house in western Romania; she has left her own home in the hands of a family of refugees from Ukraine.

Moldova is “in a very weak position,” Ms. Ivanesi explained. “We don’t have the power to fight.”

While the Moldovan government and foreign diplomats say there is currently no evidence of Transnistria getting dragged into the war, the mood here is fraught.

European ambassadors felt obliged Tuesday to release a video proving that they were still in Moldova, amid rumors that they had left en masse. In one isolated village in eastern Moldova, residents caused a brief run on a bank last month amid fears that the Ukraine war would prompt violence in Transnistria, potentially cutting off their supply routes.

“On one hand, we’re witnessing unprecedented unity and mobilization of people in helping the refugees,” said Alexandru Flenchea, a political analyst and former deputy prime minister. “But on the other hand, people are scared.”

On a busy street in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, Veronica Soltan, a 70-year-old teacher, pulled a brand-new suitcase along the sidewalk. If Russia invades, Ms. Soltan said, she will head immediately to Moldova’s western border with Romania, where her son has promised to collect her. Now she had a small blue suitcase to pack her things in.

“The Russians will conquer Ukraine, and after that they’ll come to Moldova,” Ms. Soltan said. “They’ll make the map like it was in 1945,” when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union.

Several people who had already packed their bags declined to be interviewed or to give their full names, worried about being seen as cowardly.

But to Ms. Soltan, who later packed her bag with essential clothes, medication and identity documents, her decision was simply logical. “We have to be ready,” she said. “Because you don’t know when it will happen.”

Moldova is no stranger to emigration. Since leaving the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the country has experienced huge depopulation, as citizens headed abroad to escape a dawdling economy and rampant corruption for better opportunities elsewhere. About a quarter of Moldovans now live outside the country, according to estimates by the United Nations Development Program.

That in turn makes it easier for those still in Moldova to leave themselves: They have a network of friends and family to stay with abroad. About 40 percent of Moldovans also have a Romanian passport, which allows them to settle anywhere in the European Union, the bloc that Romania joined in 2007.

Some have already made use of these avenues.

The week the war started, Vitalie Perciun, a Moldovan video producer based in Britain, drove 1,700 miles across Europe to pick up his two daughters from Moldova, where they live with his ex-wife.

“We don’t know if Putin will attack Moldova, but there’s no reason to assume that he won’t,” Mr. Perciun said in a phone interview, as he drove his children back to Britain, somewhere on the road between Brussels and Calais, France. “I’ve been saying to everyone near to me: If you want to leave — leave now,” Mr. Perciun said. “Before the panic sets in.”

Government records suggest that there has been only a small rise in the net number of Moldovans who have left the country since the start of the war. More than 62,000 Moldovans left between Feb. 24, the first day of the Russian invasion, and Monday, about 22,000 more than during the same period last year. But the number of Moldovans returning to Moldova has also risen, by 17,000, according to data supplied by the Moldovan interior ministry.

Many Moldovans say they intend to stay.

One of them is Ms. Radu, the newspaper editor. She said she was proud of having stayed in Moldova throughout its post-Soviet history, even as many others left. She wants to sustain her newspaper, though that work would put her at risk should Russia invade.

“There is another way,” Ms. Radu said. “To stay, to fight, and to make a better life where you are.”

Irina Perciun contributed reporting.