In the second week of March, the nature vlogger Ilie Cojocari went out to film the arrival of spring on the Nistru (Dniester) river, 70 metres away from his home in Naslavcea, a village bordering Ukraine on the northernmost point of Moldova. But as he approached the river he could smell the stench of oil rising up from the water and see dark spots floating on its surface. Something was wrong.

Two days earlier, Russia had attacked Ukraine’s Novodnistrovsk hydropower complex 15 miles upriver. Cojocari had been kept awake all night by the sound of shelling. “No one slept in the [Moldovan] district of Ocniţa that night,” he told me.

There was no official information from either the Ukrainian or Moldovan governments on the oil spill into the river when Cojocari went filming along its banks. But soon after posting his footage, he received calls from the Chișinău ministry of the environment asking him to confirm that the footage was real.

The next day, the ministry publicly announced that the water in Naslavcea was being tested and that officials had asked Ukraine about the origin of the spill. On 16 March, nine days after Russia attacked Ukraine’s hydropower complex, Moldova declared an environmental alert, the president Maia Sandu laid the blame squarely on Moscow.

A crisis centre was set up to monitor the spill and remove the pollutant. Oil traps and barrages made from textiles and absorbent materials were erected, and authorities provided people with alternative water supplies. But for many local residents, this felt like more than just a contaminated water issue.

Moldova has had war on its doorstep for four years. During this time, more than 2 million refugees have passed through a country of 3 million. Some 140,000 Ukrainians have settled within its borders. Russian drones have violated Moldova’s airspace and Vladimir Putin’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure have caused power outages. At its peak, inflation rose to 35% in 2022 and is currently around 5%. On 31 January, Moldova had to declare a state of energy emergency after Russia attacked the Isaccea–Vulcănești power line in Ukraine, reducing the capacity of the capital........

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