During his first official visit to Brussels, Mihai Popșoi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Moldova, said he has “faith” in Donald Trump’s administration’s “genuine will and genuine commitment to peace” in Ukraine.
This Wednesday will see the start of a second round of US-led peace negotiations with Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi. This phase of discussions will try to deal with one of the main sticking points: the dispute over the future of eastern Ukraine territories.
Popșoi takes a cautious view of the situation as it stands.
“When the rockets are flying and children are dying, and people are freezing every morning, I think a good basis for the beginning of a dialogue would be for these sorts of things to stop,” he said.
He believes it is “just a matter of the Kremlin not being particularly constructive, as we can see with the latest horrific attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure”, and questions whether the Kremlin “is fully committed to this process”.
Popșoi praised Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s efforts to “cripple the Ukrainian nation”. He believes the country has “resisted heroically” and that the international community has “been helping meaningfully”, but that it’s now time for a “lasting, sustainable and just peace”.
Moldova is not part of either NATO or the European Union, a situation that Popșoi said entails “a significant dose of anxiety”.
While acknowledging that his country has “constitutional constraints of neutrality”, he pointed out that “the only country in the world that has been consistently violating Moldovan’s neutrality status has been the Russian Federation”.
Moldova is now in the race to belong to the European Union and has set a “date to finish negotiations by 2028”. Popșoi said his country has been making significant reforms to keep its membership bid on track.
“We are doing the heavy lifting,” he said.