Weekly Roundup
November 18, 2022
Welcome back to Moldova Matters! In this weekly roundup we will check in with the top stories of the week in Politics and Economics. Subscribe to Moldova Matters to get our Weekly Roundup and other content sent right to your email! And consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work at Moldova matters. For just $5 / month, the price of a nice coffee, you can support this work and help us expand into even better content!
What a Week…
With the pace of news in Moldova it is always hard to capture everything in a weekly email. Even with that reality, the last 2 weeks have highlighted why it’s increasingly precarious to try and take a short vacation as events happen SO fast.
In order to keep our roundup manageable today, we’re going to focus in on the top 3 stories in the country
Moldova’s First Blackout and Energy Security Updates
Telegram hacks and leaks of senior politicians accounts
A Cabinet reshuffle and political uncertainty
Additionally, we’ll try and highlight other important stories in a rapid fire roundup at the end. Here we go…
Blackouts Across Moldova
On Tuesday Russia responded to its loss of Kherson to Ukrainian forces by continuing its attack against civilian energy infrastructure in Ukraine. The strikes were the largest of the war (so far) with 100+ cruise missiles striking infrastructure all over the country. As of Friday, 10 million people across Ukraine are still without power.
Much of the world news focused on a stray missile, either Russian or from Ukrainian air defense, which fell in Poland killing 2 farm workers. But Moldova also immediately felt the affects of the bombardment when a high-voltage power station in Ukraine experienced a surge due to damage elsewhere in the system and automatically disconnected. This disconnection immediately severed all power coming from Romania to Moldova causing total blackouts in many large and small towns across the country and partial blackouts in Chisinau and Balti. Minister of Infrastructure Spinu announced that the transmission lines in Ukraine were not damaged but just powered down. Working on the problem the Moldovan and Ukrainian power company engineers were able to get the system back up in 3 hours.
While a 3 hour blackout is nothing compared to what Ukraine is dealing with, it was a major wakeup call for many people in Moldova. Specifically, the country’s vulnerability was clearly demonstrated - to understand why see the map below:
The green dotted line is the high voltage line that Moldova hopes to build next year. The blue line is the current power route from Romania to Moldova. As you can see it passes through Ukraine, goes to Transnistria at the MoldGRES power plant, and then comes back up to Chisinau. This section in Ukraine is clearly vulnerable and should Russia want to cut off Moldova’s main power supply they can do it without launching any missiles at Moldova or at a NATO ally at all. The brief power cut this week has caused a lot of average people to realize just how vulnerable Moldova is.
Energy Rationing and Soaring Prices
As we discussed above, Moldova continues to get almost 90% of its electricity from Romania with domestic production making up the rest. Transnistria refuses to supply Moldova with electricity from the MoldGRES power plant claiming that Chisinau is not supplying them with enough gas. The Transnistrian “Minister” of Economic Development said:
"The volumes of gas that have been delivered to Pridnestrovie [Transnistria] since November 1 are incomprehensible. They will not be enough not only for industry, but even for the population and social facilities. We are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis."
In response to their energy shortages, Transnistria has begun implementing rationing with hot water only in service between 6:30 and 8:30 in the morning and electric trolly busses only running during peak commuter hours. They have also suspended all heavy industry to save gas.
Minister Spinu responded, saying that Chisinau has offered Transnistria 3.9 million cubic meters out of the 5.7 million cubic meters being delivered in November in exchange for 45% of the electricity that MoldGRES is contractually obliged to supply. Transnistria countered with an offer of 23% of the electrical supply which was rejected. If accepted, it would mean Transnistria taking 68% of the supplied natural gas, highlighting just how dependent the region is on natural gas both for residential and commercial purposes compared with Moldova which has far less heavy industry.
In Moldova, efforts to scale back energy consumption resulted in a 14.5% reduction in electrical usage in October and a 57% reduction in gas usage - though the gas reduction can be best explained by warm weather, shuttered industry, and the conversion of thermoelectic plants to fuel oil.
Concrete plans for Energy Subsidies were Announced
The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection announced that 645,000 families had registered for subsidies and that the registration period was extended until November 24. The basic formula for compensation is based on “vulnerability” categories as follows:
The % number is the amount of disposable income projected to be spent on energy this winter.
Very High - 95%+ | 12 lei / cubic meter of gas | 3.3 lei / kWh
High - 35 - 94% | 14 lei / cubic meter of gas | 3.7 lei / kWh
Medium - 20 - 34% | 17 lei / cubic meter of gas | no electrical subsidy
Low - 10 - 19% | 24 lei / cubic meter of gas | no electrical subsidy
Not Vulnerable - Less than 10% | no gas subsidy | no electrical subsidy
Currently, the market price of gas is 29.7 lei / cubic meter and electricity is around 4.7 lei / kWh. For electricity, households one year ago paid 1.5 lei / kWh showing that even subsidized prices are double last winter’s costs. Gas compensation is capped at 180 cubic meters / month.
In order to cover these costs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that Moldova needs around 1.1 billion euros this winter. This is around 8% of national GDP. French President Macron is hosting a donors conference in Paris next week to try and bring more support to Moldova this winter while EU countries have already begun contributing in both grants and loans to help Moldova cover costs.
As the first snows are predicted to fall in Moldova this week, and power outages remain a real possibility, Moldovan journalists at Newsmaker interviewed people about how they managed with rolling blackouts and energy disruptions in the 90s. The stories are tough - cooking over fires in courtyards, studying by candle light. But they are also full of joy (and well worth a read via google translate) - people talking about singing songs and telling stories in the dark. Moldova has seen hardship before, in ways most countries have no living memory of, and people here are tough.
Telegram Hacks
Telegram is a popular messaging app in Moldova and much of the former Soviet Union that combines the features of Whatsapp and Twitter. Last week the Telegram accounts of President Sandu and Minister Spinu were both hacked resulting in messages posted to their channels (twitter-like feeds) claiming the PAS government were liars and hiding secrets.
Shortly after this, a website called moldova-leaks.com appeared publishing messages and contact lists from senior officials. The site is registered in Saint Kitts and Nevis with obscured ownership information but the Moldovan director of SIS (Moldova’s intelligence agency) has said the chief suspects are “foreign intelligence agencies” pointing to either the Russian FSB or GRU.
Screenshot of the site
Over the course of a week, the site has been adding people and filling in the mystery ???? blocks of their contact map. The first leak dealt with Minister of Justice Litvinenko. The leakers claim that Minister Litvinenko’s messages reveal that he colluded with a small group inside of the Superior Council of Prosecutors to rig the hiring process in order to hire Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Dragolin. In response, Minister Litvinenko first said that all the messages were fake. This turned out to be false when people in the messages confirmed some of them. He then backtracked saying that there were some real messages interspersed with some fake ones and others edited or out of context.
The next to be leaked was Presidential Security Advisor Dorin Recean. In one message, the leakers noted that Recean (allegedly) sent a message containing a recording made in Igor Dodon’s house. Dodon’s lawyers jumped on this saying that the recording came from his ankle bracelet (house arrest fashion item) and that this proves prosecutors are passing case information to political figures. Mr. Recean said that these messages are fake.
Next came former PLDM Member of Parliament and political commentator Vadim Pistrincuic. Leakers claimed Mr. Pistrincuic was working with PAS but also coordinating with the new opposition block as well. They also claimed he was promoting marijuana legalization in Moldova. Pistrincuic responded:
“I read some of the alleged leak published. As in other cases, it's a boring mix of real conversation with a montage to create gossip. The only problem is that I will now have to change my password,”
Today the leakers posted Minister of the Interior Ana Revenco’s information. They didn’t really have wrongdoing accusations against her but wrote a vicious screed about her being unqualified and simply an “NGO” person.
This is not the end of the hacks, as the person at the top of the chart has yet to be published. Furthermore it was announced that Viorel Cernautanu, head of the General Inspectorate of Police was also hacked. PAS MP and new Minister of the Economy (more on that below) Dumitru Alaiba was also hacked but no leaks have yet surfaced.
What do these hacks mean?
Firstly, Moldova has a major cyber security problem. Prime Minister Gavrilita has already held meetings to tighten cyber security and the director of SIS noted that only government landline phones are secure - all private phones require careful cyber hygiene. Predictably, and probably according to plan, the Socialist Party is making political hay over the leaked information and demanding pretty much everyone’s resignation.
At the core, this is clearly a cyber campaign designed to destabilize Moldova. The mix of real and fake messages is designed to smear officials and perhaps make PAS party members turn on each other (Moldova Matters can confirm messages are selectively leaked - but whether or not messages are fake is not possible to prove now).
Regardless of the message contents, it is not good that the entire contact lists of the country’s senior leadership (including names and phone numbers) are leaked publicly.
What is really troubling is who the targets are. With the exception of Vadim Pistrincuic who is not in parliament or government, these hacks have targeted a large number of very senior people. This implies that whoever is behind it didn’t simply get one user to click on a bad link but was able to crack accounts more or less at will. Obviously, this calls Telegram’s security credentials into question. It also raises questions about who else was hacked and wasn’t leaked. Minister of Justice Litvinenko said hackers didn’t find anything worth blackmailing over so they dumped his information. Is it possible they found blackmail targets elsewhere? This story has the feeling of just getting started.
Prime Minister Gavrilita Re-Shuffles her Cabinet
On Sunday evening PAS party members met in the evening at the Presidential Administration for a faction (party) meeting. This meeting immediately sparked major speculation both in the press and on social media about a cabinet reshuffle. Rumors that Prime Minister Gavrilita was going to be sacked and replaced with Presidential Advisor Dorin Recean were spread on twitter by American Political Consultant Jason Smart as well as in some local press. Jason Smart formerly worked in Moldova for the government of Prime Minister Filat. Rumors also focused on Justice Minister Sergei Litvinenko being replaced by Chairman of the Parliamentary Legal Commission, Olesya Stamate, and Minister of the Economy Gaibu being replaced by PAS MP Dumitru Alaiba. Outlets cited sources saying that Speaker of Parliament Igor Grosu, Minister of Infrastructure Andrei Spinu, and Presidential Advisor Dorin Recean were all being considered for the post of Prime Minister.
What followed was a masterclass in confused political communication as PAS party members refused to comment on rumors following the meeting and no announcements were made until later in the week. At that time, Prime Minister Gavrilita confirmed that Minister of the Economy Gaibu was asked to resign and that MP Dumitru Alaiba would be the new Minister. She noted that his focus would be on communications with business drawing a clear distinction with Minister Gaibu who rarely did press appearances and had no real presence on social media.
Prime Minister Gavrilita remains in post and PAS officials have tried to brush off suggestions that she would be replaced. At the same time, the reshuffle seems to be ongoing as more announcements come out in a piecemeal basis. Yevhen Kozonak, head of State Property Agency, resigned to become economic advisor to the Prime Minister. It is not clear if the reason for gathering the whole party faction was to approve the replacement of the Minister of Economy or if there is more coming.
PAS politicians tried to clarify the party’s support for the PM and various ministers. Speaker Grosu spoke in support of the Minister of Justice and against the Socialists attempts to initiate a vote of no-confidence in him. Minister Spinu also spoke out saying that “forces outside Moldova” were trying to split the PAS party and destabilize Moldova with rumors. Given the telegram hacks mentioned above, this is almost certainly true. At the same time, when information is muddled and chaotic people look for clear information - and that was woefully lacking this week.
We don’t know if there will be more replacements, or if they will be big or small, but it seems like the “imminent cabinet reshuffle” story that began in July is still lumbering onwards.
Rapid Fire Roundup:
In this section, we’ll briefly look at other stories making the news in Moldova this week.
International Visits - President of the European Commission Ursula Vonderleyen and President of EU Parliament Roberta Metsola each made separate visits to Chisinau in the past week to assure Moldova of the EU’s support. President Roberta Metsola said:
“This is a conflict and an attack for which we must better prepare. And we must strengthen our security infrastructure. And in this sense, the European Parliament has very clearly spoken out in favor of creating a stable defense and security alliance that will complement NATO. Which will help countries like Moldova to strengthen security and prevent even more serious threats. This is a wake-up call for us that anything can happen and we have to be ready for it,”The Socialist Party has begun protests in multiple regions around Moldova. They held one “flash mob” with a small attendance in Chisinau as well. They are calling on President Sandu to resign. The Socialists are keeping their protest carefully separated from the Shor Protests.
Moldova Bans Cryptocurrency - Mining was previously banned for energy consumption reasons. Now exchanges are banned in order to combat money laundering (with a focus on Shor).
Prosecutors continue going after Shor’s money: Police and prosecutors continue to seize money in searches of Shor party offices, or from protest organizers. Police said:
“Law enforcement agencies have reason to suspect that the seized money was obtained as a result of illegal activities. They were to be used to recruit, organize, transport and reward persons incited to carry out riots."
They also released recordings of wire taps they say show Shor party members organizing mass riots.Shor Protests: For the last few Sundays, protests have continued with protestors attempting to block central streets while police prevented them. Protestors are arrested each time for violent actions or bringing prohibited materials (e.g. fireworks). This week they announced they are giving up the Sunday protests and came out Friday instead blocking central streets and making the friday commute pretty terrible. Overall, the protests are decreasing in size, presumably as a result of prosecutors’ success in seizing the funds used to illegally pay people to protest.
Outlawing the Shor Party - The Ministry of Justice has appealed to the Constitutional Court with a request to outlaw the Shor party. Minister Litvinenko stated:
"the Shor party is acting in contradiction to the principles of the rule of law and endangering the sovereignty and independence of Moldova."Journalists at RISE Moldova tracked $300,000 transferred from Russian accounts to former President Dodon. This is confirming the international (Washington Post) reporting on Dodon’s payment schemes with Russian agents. Dodon responded saying this was all “lies.”
Anti-Corruption Prosecutors raid Socialist Party Offices. Prosecutors are investigating illegal financing of parties and money laundering linked to Vladimir Plahotniuc. They took documents and computers.
….and yet Mr. Dodon was released from house arrest this week under a judicial ruling. He is not allowed to leave the country for 60 days.
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