Moldovan President Maia Sandu has said she would vote in favor of joining Romania if her country held a referendum to protect its fragile democracy from Russian influence, Reuters reports.
Sandu’s pro-European party, which won elections in September 2025, has regularly accused Russia of interfering in Moldova’s internal affairs. The former Soviet bloc country is home to about 2.4 million people, most of whom speak Romanian, but there is also a sizeable Russian-speaking minority.
Speaking on the British podcast The Rest is Politics, broadcast on January 11, Sandu said: “If we have a referendum, I would vote for the unification with Romania. Look at what is happening in the world. It is getting more and more difficult for a small country like Moldova to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country, and of course to resist Russia.”
About 1.5 million Moldovans also hold Romanian citizenship,
but recent polls show that only a third would support reunification with Bucharest. Sandu said she was aware that the majority of Moldovans did not support her position, and added that joining the European Union would be a much more realistic goal.
Her government hopes to join the EU by 2030, but before then it must carry out a series of difficult reforms while also countering Russian influence. The pro-Russian Socialists were in power as recently as 2020.
Moldova, which also shares a border with Ukraine, was part of Romania during the interwar period, but was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II. The country regained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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