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Maia Sandu

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2026-01-12
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2026-01-12
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  1. “Be the meta messages, also not some narrow messages for different stakeholders. I mean, I don't want to be bad, but you can't just pick about the rights of LGBT. You have to speak also to the people who are scared of the rights of LGBT. This is what I had to deal with in Moldova, because it's a country where Conservatism is still there. So you have to speak to everyone and to explain, yes, what the rights mean and to fight the propaganda because Russia is using this and it's using the war as the theme of propaganda and you have to tackle all these issues and not just focus on some very narrow messages. You need to be very frank with people even when you have to deliver difficult messages. You have to be the online but you also need to be there offline and you have to be ready that it's going to be very very tough.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Because again, I didn't believe that the minister had to be a political position. I was not a member of a political party. And I just said, I'm a technocrat. I'm going to go there to implement some reforms. So for me, the most difficult time was the first few years as a minister of education when I was just shocked that people were saying nonsense about me. And I believe they didn't have any reason to do to say that. But then I've learned it that it's going to be tough. But as long as you believe and as long as you have the trust of people and to have the trust of people, you have to talk to the people. Moldova is a small country. I've been visiting lots of villages and towns and cities. It's easier. But it's important because this is one issue again about the mainstream political parties in Europe. I think the messages have to”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “You have to be very strong. You should not expect that you're going to have a lot on hate speech and then everything's going to be nice. You can have Moldova has a law against the hate speech, but it doesn't really work. You have to know that it's going to be very tough. But no matter how tough it is, you have to pursue your goal because we want to live in a free world, in a free country. We want to live in dignity. And those who are fighting the young and the decent people in politics, they just want you to give up, to say it's too much. It's attacking my family. It's saying all these stupid things about me, which is not true. I was actually shocked when I became a menast.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Well, that was during a different period, but now his name is not there anymore. It is a really nice country. It's a cheap ticket, and in three, four days you can see a lot of this country, you can see our tradition and the villages that are not just there to be exposed, that we live by our traditions. So, please do come to Moldova. You're not going to regret it. It's a nice country.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “First of all, we have the best wines and they are also very cheap. I would say some of them are better than in France, and they are much cheaper than in France. And we have these nice wineries, and you can see like 10 of them in just two days because they are very close to each other. We have very good food. We have the biggest wine cellars. You just come and then you can get lost in some of this.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Well, I think the recent developments, international developments and developments on the continent show that EU needs to become bigger and stronger because this is, again, in everybody's interest. And yes, I do understand those who have been waiting for a long time because for a while there has no, I mean, the discussion on the enlargement has been kind of very low on the agenda now is high on the agenda. I'm not saying that it's easy to keep it high. But I do believe. To understand the threats and then to also understand that our strength is in unity and that EU is not formed of only big countries, EU is actually formed of middle level, I mean, and smaller countries. But in this new world, which is going to be very different than what we have experienced in the last three decades, we need to need unity and we need to work together.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “EU says no, then it's going to be easier for Asia to get here, and then again Russia will use Moldova against the way to Europe.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, I don't believe Moldova is spending money because Moldova is small and the economic integration of our country is really not a problem for you. I mean, our economy is already almost fully integrated. We have one million citizens of EU because they're citizens of Romania and they're citizens of EU. They're already working in Europe and they are highly appreciated by all the leaders of the EU countries. So it's not about that. On the other side, if Moldova does not get the chance to become a member state, it is going to get into Russian hands at some point because it's difficult for a small country. Yes, we've been very courageous. We've been very brave and we've been resisting all this interference, knowing that we're not alone, that EU is there as our ally, as our friends, and one day we will become part of this big family.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “We are looking for solutions, we are talking to our partners, but we do hope that EU is not going to give Putin the veto power on Moldova's EU integration process.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Our interest is to become part of the EU as a whole and to reintegrate the country before the EU integration. But we also know that Russia does not want Moldova to become a EU member state and Russia is going to do everything and they've been trying to influence the elections, but they failed. They still have the Russian army there and they don't want to destroy the Russian army. So the big issue now is how do we get rid peacefully of the Russian army so that we could do the reintegration before the UN.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Like 10 years ago, the same with the diaspora, like the people who go to work abroad before it was only Russian, now half of these people from the region go to the EU.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Was not the case before because Russia always tried to show that the situation in the region controlled by Russia was better than in the rest of the country. So they would get energy for free, almost for free, very symbolic prices, pensions to them and stuff like that. Now the financial situation is much more difficult. They still consume Russian gas but they get much less and the tariffs are going up. Russia is not willing anymore to give them gas for free. Many people, tens of thousands of people are coming to work on the right bank of Nistru, which is controlled by the Questisho authorities. We even see a change in the economic structure for the exports. Now 80% of the exports from the Transnistrian region go to the EU markets as compared to 100% to Russia.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I visited when I was not in politics when I didn't have a public position, but otherwise no. Now, of course, since the war, it's not an active conflict. We have peace for a long time now, but the Russians are keeping their army there. This is an illegal presence of the Russian army. And of course, this is the main impediment to solving the problem. Since the war has started, of course, the war in Ukraine, we have focused on keeping the situation stable because we didn't want Moldova to be dragged into, we don't want Moldova to be dragged into the war. And we do see changes there because today the economic situation in the region is much worse than in the rest of the country.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “It hasn't been recognized the independence of the separatist regime has not been recognized even by Russia, so none of the countries have recognized it, but Moldova's constitutional authorities have not been able to control the territory. And are you able to sit it?”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Well, I just mentioned it that when Moldova became independent, Russia found a way to still create a problem for Moldova's independence. And this is when we had the several months war between the left Bank of Nisru, Nistru being one of the two main rivers of the country and the right bank actually it was the Russian army which was there for a long time during the Soviet times which was attacking the Moldovans. Actually the separatism so this region decided that it doesn't want to be part of the region.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Do appreciate the current administration trying to find a solution to bring peace. At the same time, I don't believe that Putin wants peace. And that's why I'm skeptical about the peace plans. I hope I'm wrong, but so far you don't see any signs that Putin is interested in stopping this war. I actually believe that the West When Russia's economy was not yet totally oriented towards war, when Russia was surprised that it did not concur Kiev in three days and so on, now it's going to be much more difficult. But for Russia to want to stop the war, it has to fill it economically. So I do believe that”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Maduro was not a legitimate president, and this just reminds me that when we were fighting our oligarch back in 2015-16, 17, and we spent lots of time in the streets protesting, and then people would ask me, doesn't the West see what is happening here? Why the West does not extract the oligarch for us to recover our democracy? So, you know, I had to tell them for some reasons the West cannot do that. But it was useful when later on the West did sanction this oligarch and the others and many other people who participated in this big corruption schemes. So I can't say that I actually hope that now Venezuela is going to have the chance to build a democracy and to get rid. Of a regime”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Justice doesn't work properly. Some of them, I mean, felt like what I felt before creating a political party. I don't want to pay taxes in a country where the leadership steals this money. So it's really about the statehood. You need to have, I know it's almost impossible to totally eliminate corruption, but we had this big corruption, and this is the main issue on the agenda, to punish the big corruption. And of course, to deal then with systemic corruption, which is also not easy to deal with.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “It is important for everything. I mean, if you want people to trust the state, if you want them to trust this country, you need to make sure that there is justice, that those who have been stealing can imagine that people who have participated in this banking sector fraud, they are not yet convicted. One of them is convicted, but he's hiding in Russia. And for the other is the trial is happening now. We'll see what happens. I mean, this is about you pay taxes, you want these taxes to be invested in roads and schools and kindergartens and not to see the people in power who just take this money and put them in their pocket. Moldova has one million of Moldovans abroad, some of them left because they didn't have jobs, but some of them left because they were disappointed with the business environment and you can't have a proper business environment.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “These are people who had money at some point, and this money was not necessarily made in legal ways, but this is the primitive accumulation of capital, to put it this way, when you make the transition from the planned economy to... And then these people at some point, they wanted to have more and they wanted to control power, and then they didn't control only power, they started to control justice, and they literally captured the state. And that's why we have such big issues now reforming justice and reforming our institutions, but especially justice, because they just captured all the institutions and there were no checks and balances and one person who had the money. Initially, he would bribe the judges and the prosecutors to have the decisions that he wanted. Later on, when he had enough power, he didn't”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Envelope salaries. So when we came to power, it was an unpopular move to correct the law. And this is how we ended up, but we had to increase the salaries for the ministers and for the state secretaries because, you know, you need to have a decent salary for people to afford to work for the government.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I haven't looked at the statistics. I have a salary which is about 1,000 euro per month and it's not just me who is the prime minister, it's the Speaker of the Parliament. Why is that? Because the law on salaries was developed by a previous government back in 2018 and when they did the scales and so on they would not for them they would have just some symbolic salaries not because they believed they deserve symbolic salaries but because of the corruption they had this”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “People that this is how a political party functions. So for four years we had just one employee in the political party who got a small salary and the rest of us were just doing full-time voluntary work. I was lucky to have some savings from the time I worked at the World Bank, but it hasn't been easy.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “And this is how we started with the political party. And we had no money, so I went public and I said, we need your contributions. If you want to have clean politics, and Moldovans were not aware of how political parties were being financed because there was not such a discussion, and of course all the political parties were financed with dirty money, and corruption was starting from the moment, I mean, the political parties, how the political parties would finance themselves. And then when they get into power, of course, this would extend the state institutions level. So when I said we need your small donations, some people would say, oh, you want to become a politician and you want us to pay for? So it was really in the polls, only 4% of people when we started that would say that they are ready to finance, to make contributions, 4% of the people. So we had to teach.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “young people because they were not afraid of the regime because the pensioners said that they had nothing to lose the regime was becoming really authoritarian so it was an oligarch in power it was corrupt the guy but the regime also and they were very authoritarian so like people who had businesses there would be”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “didn't take me seriously and this was good because otherwise I would have not succeeded so they just thought for themselves that this is a bunch of kids who have no money who have no political experience you know they will play a bit politics and then they will leave and so we decided to create a political party we didn't know what this was about so we went to trainings to NDI and IRI and some other international institutions which were providing trainings to everyone I mean all the political parties and then we announced that we went to create a political party actually people were looking for for new political forces and then we told people we need because we needed to have a lot of members now we've changed the law we needed to have members in all the regions and so on and then we announced that if you want us to create a political party please come and help us and then people started to come and it was mostly old people and”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Today, we also have a very good minister of education, so I can't say that I'm the only one. And then, of course, it was very disappointing because on one hand, you could see that if you work hard, if you do the right thing, you can achieve some results. But then the rest of the country, while the leadership was saying that they were doing the EU integration and we just got the three trade regime and the visa regime, and then you have this discovery that everything is going wrong. So, you know, I had a choice. I either leave the country or I tried to do politics differently because all the political parties in power which had some support before, they were led by corrupt people. You don't want to pay taxes in a country.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “To become the Minister of Education, and I was ready for a professional challenge, and I also Didn't see it as a political position. I just thought I'll go there, I'll do the reforms, I'll do what's right, and then that's it. And three years, I built a team there and we started to do some important reforms in education. And then we discovered that the rest of the government or many people in the ruling parties were actually involved in a massive banking sector fraud. This was the biggest corruption scheme, 12% of GDP. And that's when I, of course, I left the government. And this happened while I was fighting corruption in the education sector because we also had cheating at the exam and I undertook together with my colleagues a pretty big”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I mean, if you're an honest person, you are an honest person, no matter whether you're in politics, or you're in business. But to get back to the first question, I've never planned to become a politician. I became a civil servant immediately after the university because these were the first year of Moldova's independence, and this is when we were establishing a state. And people like me from the universities were invited to go to the ministries because we had to start from scratch. It was interesting, but also at some point disappointing because we've seen the reforms fail again and again. So I had a pretty long experience as a civil servant. I've seen politicians and leaders of ministries, of the government and of the country. Some of them were stupid, some of them were corrupt. So I was getting pretty disappointed. At some point, I got this proposal.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Well, Russia's imperialism is a reality. And of course, there are minimum scenario is the former Soviet Union. They have never accepted the fact that Soviet Union Cease to exist at some point, and like we are an example that even with Eltson in power, they continued with the Transnistrian conflict. And this was just one of the conflicts on the territorial form, Soviet Union republics, because they hoped, they always hoped that they will get back. And this is just one instrument for them to influence us and to keep us from moving forward. So this is the base case scenario, but as I said, it's not only about Moldova. Moldova is not something very valuable to Russia. Moldova is just testing grounds and is a place which can be a land that can be used by Russia to move forward. Europe is the target Russia wants to control Europe.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “As I said, in all part of the world, the Russia's interference has been obvious and we have felt it again and again. It's been more brutal. So it's easier both for the government but also for the people to see it. Our people might be more afraid of Russia and if you ask me about my role what I've been trying to do is But otherwise, it was really a whole of society response because this is how people felt it that Russia was interfering with our sovereignty, without decision. In the Western Europe, I think, again, people see if I share far. They do support Ukraine, and we're very grateful for that. But I do believe that many people underestimate what Russia is doing and the damage it can bring to our democracies.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “It's not an easy discussion, but again, we want people to have free speech, not those who are behind this non-authentic accounts. Yes, it's not easy to identify who are there. I mean, we've done that, but it takes a couple of months for our institutions to identify that Russia is behind the Russian money, is behind this specific group of non-authentic accounts. So the social platform should take a responsibility for that. It's not, you know, there is danger for democracy and everybody needs to understand that.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Like in the last two weeks before the election. So even if the institutions, you know, probably they could have done a better job, but it was really difficult to do a much better job when it happens in such a short period of time. So this is the discussion with the social platforms because of course there is a lot of positive and I established the political party here when we had no financial resources at all and we had no access to TV and we used Facebook and other social platforms. But at the same time there is a pretty big damage and risk which is coming now from the social platforms and we need to have this discussion.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “We have seen in Romania, and then we also had experience in Moldova, is lots of non-authentic accounts. And then the amplification through this non-authentic accounts. And I don't believe that this non-authentic fake accounts are about the freedom of expression. Yes, I do believe that there are people who have different views who might want Moldova to be with Russia if this is authentic. This is one thing. But then even that might be manipulated because there has been so much anti-EU propaganda, anti-NATO propaganda, and stuff like that. But that's a little bit more difficult because you get into this discussion of freedom of expression. But when you have because this is what happened in Romania, you had this very, very many non-authentic accounts and amplification of this fake information through this account.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “It's much easier for them to spend money and to influence elections with the manipulation of information and disinformation. And that's more difficult for the people to say, to notice. So in the case of Moldova, I did warn people about what Russia was trying to do and this helped. But also it helped because, well, it helped on one hand because Russia's interference has been brutal and it was easier for people to say in the case of your country and other democratic countries. The interference is not that brutal. It's more difficult for people to see and that's why it's easier for Russia to manipulate.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “In your case, of course, it's almost impossible for them to try to bribe voters as they did in Moldova. They identify the poorest people and that they try to bribe some of the voters. It's probably more difficult for them to fund political parties because your institutions are stronger, but you still have to be careful. But it's much easier.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Then you know you can't save your democracy. So we had to make some changes. It was not easy because you have to go and explain it to the Venice Commission. The European Commission and so on, but you have to act and adjust to the new threats quickly because otherwise if you go by the old rules, you just lose your sovereignty and you lose your democracy.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Don't have proof, but knowing the Russians and judging by what has happened after, I do believe that there is a high probability that they have interfered. And I think that the problem is that, at least from my knowledge, there was not enough effort after that to look into it. Of course, you don't change the results after that. That's why it's so important to act during the process. For instance, what we had to do after the referendum, but before the parliamentary elections, we had to change legislation to make sure that judges had to look into this illicit funding not in four years, but in several days, because if there is illegal financing of political campaigns, but then justice comes and takes a decision three years from now, I mean, from the moment it happens.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “No, I don't feel lonely. We have great friends and Great Britain has been supporting us a lot, especially in the last few years, especially last year, we got lots of support on cybersecurity. We've got support to deal with the disinformation for our Stratcom. I really felt the support. I'm very grateful to the Prime Minister, Star Mev.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Who's going to believe you? So Russia was not just about interfering, it was about discrediting the institutions, the process of making Moldovans not trust, as I said, results.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “And that's not easy for a country like Moldova. We did have support from Great Britain and we're very grateful. We did have support from EU. We did have support from US, but it's been very, very tough. On cybersecurity, for instance, you need to invest a lot. We discovered a few months before the elections that we had a big issue. The risk was not that Russia would interfere with the voting because you still have the votes on paper. But Moldova has an electronic system and then people are used that they will see the results of the elections one hour after because it's done really properly and very quickly. And Russia wanted to interfere with this system and imagine that if Russia interferes and then they show some wrong results and then you go back and say”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “We really improved significantly last year after the experience we had with the referendum. Because again, just the tax inspectorate might not have all the information that they need from the intelligence and so on. So what we had, we had a team in the government, which was like a strategic coordination unit, and they met on a weekly basis, and they met a year before the elections, and they would just follow on all the actions that Reshoe is trying to do, and they would identify the networks for illicit financing and so on. But even with this coordinating activities, it is difficult, as I said, because the head of the anti-money laundering agency was telling that even if you and Moldova does meet all the money requirements, you still not prepared for what Russia is doing today. So you need to meet even higher standards.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “This is why the illicit funding is a very difficult issue for us to deal with, especially since we are a small country. What we have done after the experience we had with the referendum in 2024, we put together a team. You need to have a lot of institutions working together. For instance, on the illicit funding. So you need to have a strategic center which has the helicopter view and coordinate the activities of all the institutions because you need the work of the anti-money laundering institution, you need the work of the anti-corruption institutions, the intelligence, the tax inspectorate because they also have their roles in checking on financing of political parties and so on.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Well, I mean, of course, we have a GDP of 20. So you can imagine in the referendum in 2024, we estimated that Russia's interference in our referendum was 1% of our GDP”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “And they have the budget, and the budget has been increasing significantly. We believe that last year at the parliamentary elections, they spent at least 300 million euros.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “So you should not upset Russia, you should not vote for people who do not get along with Putin, because we are the only ones to provide peace.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Was very, very intense, especially the few days before the elections, but especially the day of the election, the paid protests, because Russia's strategy in Moldova has been, and it's probably not just Moldova, is to divide the society, is to promote the narrative that the state is weak, your authorities cannot deliver or they are corrupt and so on. And that's why the false information about me, and that your institutions are weak and there is no one to defend you, so if you want to live in peace, and of course everybody is scared of the war because you have a war in Ukraine and we see what it means for the people. And then the message is you cannot rely on your state. You cannot rely on your government.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “That would be very valuable. It's about controlling Moldova to target then Europe, the way that Europe and other countries in the region. So before Russia could influence Moldova by cutting gas, now they can't do it anymore. It's more difficult for them. So they have to employ this whole range of hybrid war, which means, in our case, disinformation, manipulation of information, illicit financing of political parties, and this is a very difficult issue for us because now they're using more and more cryptocurrency. And again, Moldova is a country which does not have very strong institutions, but still we could managed to prevent this this time. They were trying to bribe voters. They used the cyber attacks.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “It was not about me, of course, it was about Moldova's EU integration, and it was about Russia losing its influence in Moldova. It was not about me. It could have been anybody, I mean anyone else there. So this is how I see it. I don't say it about me. So it's about the country and we have to do everything we can to keep Moldova sovereign because what Russia wants to do is to decide on our behalf and to use Moldova. Now they wanted to control power in Moldova to use Moldova against Ukraine first of all and you can imagine how problematic this would have been for Ukraine but of course for Moldova also but also for the EU for the countries in the region and then of course long term Russia has bigger objectives because it's not just about controlling Moldova Moldova is a small country we don't have I don't know like something”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Remittances because remittances are still important day and they are about 13% of the GDP and in the past they were even 30% of GDP. So we actually have done a lot because we know that Russia is not interested in having good relations, in having trade relations, in supplying gas and getting money for that. Russia just wants to harass a country to put it this way.”

    2026-01-12 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 170. President of Moldova, Maia Sandu: Holding the Line Between Democracy and Putin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source