Moldovans have voted for Europe. Can President Sandu end a frozen conflict with Russia-backed Transnistria and pull her country closer to the EU?

Moldova’s parliamentary elections on Sunday delivered a surprising victory for President Maia Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), which secured an outright majority—55 of 101 seats—reinforcing the country’s pro-European trajectory. The vote represents part of a greater geopolitical struggle over Moldova’s future and the fate of Transnistria, the Russia-aligned, breakaway strip of territory along the Dniester River.

In this new episode of In the National Interest, Daniel Runde, a senior adviser at BGR Group and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discusses his latest article on resolving the frozen, decades-old conflict.

Energy has long been Moscow’s pressure point in the region. Ukraine’s decision to let Russia’s

© The National Interest