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Positioned at the intersection of geopolitical tensions, Moldova has grappled with the intricacies and uncertainties of a great power rivalry between Russia and the European Union. Under the leadership of the PAS government since 2021, Moldova gained the prospect of EU accession, signifying a historic moment. The country's European integration faces, however, mounting counteraction from Russia, due to both the full-fledged war in Ukraine and the Kremlin's hybrid attacks on Moldova itself. Scholarly research is scarce on how “in-between” states like Moldova actually navigate such complex and changing geopolitical landscapes. This article, therefore, zooms in on Moldova's geopolitical and geostrategic “inbetweenness”, seeking to unveil the varied hedging strategies it employs. Drawing substantially on semi-structured elite and expert interviews, this article aims to discuss Moldova's identifiable geostrategies pursued over the past three decades, including along the path of the country's ever-increasing distancing from Moscow and ever-closer ties with Brussels or the dynamics of alternating (differentiated) dis/integration.
Baltag et al. (Thu,) studied this question.