The Fall Of Plahotniuc And A New Hope For Moldova

In June 2019, the small landlocked nation of Moldova found itself in a life or death struggle between two opposing futures: Oligarchs like the notorious Vladimir Plahotniuc had worked diligently for years to bring this nation into the hull of the collapsing NATO-EU Titanic while nationalists sought to re-align Moldova’s future with the new emerging Multipolar Alliance led by China and Russia.

The greatest moment of decision (until now) occurred in June 2019 when elections resulted in a three-way split between a pro-Russian Socialist Party, the pro-EU ACUM and another pro-western Democratic Party run by the arch Moldavian kleptocrat Vladimir Plahotniuc.

Vlad Plahotniuc: Deep State Tool and Force of Regime Change

Vlad Plahotniuc (VoA)

A renowned kleptocrat whom by all accounts is known as the richest man in Moldova, Plahotniuc was not only a media and advertising mogul controlling the vast majority of the news, and entertainment of the small nation, but was also a power in Moldova’s banking, hotel and services industry who, with the support of Victoria Nuland, took charge of the pro-EU Democratic Party from December 2016. Although his highest political office was Deputy Speaker of Parliament, it was known by all, that Plahotniuc was the hidden hand controlling the state and aspired to make that power official by becoming Prime Minister.

During the dark days of the Obama era, Plahotniuc interfaced closely with Asif Chaudhry (U.S. Ambassador to Moldova from 2008-2011) who acted as power broker and mediator during the tumultuous period of change that saw the elimination of the pro-Russian Communist Party and the rise of the pro-Euro Integration movement under the Democratic Party in the wake of the 2009 “Twitter Revolution” (sometimes called the “revolution of Twits”). This crisis saw a near color revolution as 30 000 Jacobin youth in Chisinau aspired to overthrow the government by declaring the recent elections to be fraudulent. The slogans shouted by the mob included “we want Europe”, “we are Romanians” and “down with Communism”. Romania had joined NATO in 2004 and the movement to absorb Moldova into Romania was supported by many in the west wishing to see NATO’s unabated growth.

S I D E B A R
Patrice Greanville

The Snake Eats Itself by The Tail: Disinformation Gymnastics

Vladimir Plahotniuc is not only regarded as a crook by many Moldovans, who would like to see him face justice. He's also apparently (for show) also on America's shit list of criminal oligarchs. How else do we explain—unless the VoA/RFE suddenly developed some authentic journalistic genes—this scathing portrait on the RFE (Radio Free Europe) site on March 4? Headlined in no ambiguous terms, Exclusive: Moldova's Most Notorious Oligarch Has Been In The U.S. Despite Sanctions, Officials Say, the piece goes on to describe that rarest of oddities, a supposed meeting of the minds (and values) between Washington and Moscow. Of course we are not buying it. An utterly corrupt empire crawling with sociopathic oligarchs all over its stenchy carcass is not liable to suddenly grow principles inimical to international thievery. So what's going on here? Can't tell for sure, except Washington and NATO may be hedging their bets and playing a long game. Moldova may already have some strategic assets Washington is not keen on losing, beginning with its location in the middle of a very interesting neighborhood:

That may explain the conciliatory tone toward Moscow. Or maybe the hybrid machine is preparing another "revolution", riding a new, different horse. President Dodon and the people who put Plathoniuc to flight have a similar view of events. Their take (endorsed by the TASS press service)  is that the US gave shelter to oligarch Plahotniuc to influence Moldovan policy. According to Moldova's president, the US planned to use the fugitive oligarch in its fight against Russia. "Those who helped Plahotniuc to flee counted at minimum on his control over the Democratic Party (a Moldovan party, not the American entity). He pledged to ensure support for the pro-European government of Sandu [Prime Minister Maia Sandu — TASS] and prevent the strengthening of the Socialists, who are carrying out a balanced foreign policy in the interests of the country," Dodon said.  According to him, plans were also to use the fugitive oligarch "in [the] fight against Russia, that he had repeatedly staged provocations against over the recent years on orders from outside." The president reiterated that Russian diplomats, journalists and politicians had seen expulsions from Moldova during the rule of the Plahotniuc-led Democratic Party, and restrictions had been imposed on Russian media outlets, while officials had been banned from visiting Russia.  "However, those who have sheltered him, seem to understand that they will hardly need him any longer. The new leadership of the Democratic Party is distancing itself from the oligarch with a trail of negativity behind him — recently some of his closest associates were required to hand over their parliamentary mandates," Dodon stated. (Read the rest of the TASS dispatch here.) So, it seems like we'll have to wait and see.  Meantime, check out an excerpt from the VoA piece. Click on the orange button to read it.

[bg_collapse view="button-orange" color="#4a4949" expand_text="Oligarch on the lam denounced by Washington" collapse_text="Show Less" ]

Exclusive: Moldova's Most Notorious Oligarch Has Been In The U.S. Despite Sanctions, Officials Say,
(Radio Free Europe)
He's one of the most powerful, and most notorious, tycoons in Moldova's three decades of independence, a man linked to the "theft of the century" -- the disappearance of $1 billion from Moldovan banks in 2014.

A longtime behind-the-scenes power broker, Vladimir Plahotniuc fled Moldova in June 2019 after being pushed out of parliament as part of a government shakeup brokered by Russia, the United States, and other European partners. He has dropped out of the public view since then, reportedly traveling under one or more assumed names and alternate passports.

In January, the United States hit the ousted oligarch and his family with visa restrictions "due to his involvement in significant corruption...that undermined the rule of law and severely compromised the independence of democratic institutions in Moldova."

Moldovan officials and U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation, however, told RFE/RL that Plahotniuc had been in the United States on several occasions in recent months, including at least once since the State Department imposed the visa restrictions. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

The development has worried anti-corruption experts, activists in Moldova, and observers abroad who fear the U.S. administration is sending a bad signal to countries trying to root out corruption and improve governance.

"If Vladimir Plahotniuc is really somewhere in the United States, this would be unsurprising but disappointing," said William Hill, a U.S. diplomat who headed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission in Moldova in the late 1990s and 2000s.

"The U.S. lost a great deal of credibility and support in Moldovan civil society over the past few years due to Washington's continued, seemingly uncritical willingness to work with Plahotniuc almost up to the end of his days in power," he said. "Backing for Plahotniuc, tacit or explicit, caused many in Moldova increasingly to perceive American rhetoric in support of democracy and reform as largely self-interested anti-Russian geopolitics."

[/bg_collapse]

E N D OF S I D E B A R

REGULAR TEXT RESUMES HERE
Beginning in April 7, 2009, these mobs took over (and set fire to) government buildings and replaced Moldovan flags with Romanian and European Union flags. While this effort was quashed by crackdowns by police, a taste of the potential for regime change was felt by all and then-President Vladimir Voronin called it a “coup d’etat”.

In hindsight, we can observe the growth of the media empire under the control of Plahotniuc and the vast investments into “democracy building” by the National Endowment of Democracy to get a sense of the causal hand behind these events, though at the time the culprits never came to light.

One thing is clear: The American State Department’s hand pervaded this story as Ambassador Chaudhry (connected closely to Victoria Nuland according to Wikileaks emails), was a major power broker and brags that his work in carrying out Moldovan democracy reforms during this time was the most rewarding experience of his career.

In the wake of this attempted coup, three pro-western opposition parties created the Alliance for European Integration winning 53 seats and pushing out the Communist Party from power.

By 2014, the long-sought for EU association agreements were signed by Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine with NATO’s bureaucrats salivating at the prospect of assimilating all three. At this time, Ukraine’s pro-Russian government had just fallen to its own color revolution and the new regime of Yatseniuk was calling for speedy NATO entry. Even though its 1994 Constitution prevented it, Moldova was already a part of the NATO Partnership for Peace Program and had participated in NATO’s Kosovo Force since 2014. A change in Constitution to permit for NATO entry by way of Euro integration (or total regime change) was not a huge stretch of the imagination at this point.

During this time high level Obama-era regime change agents like Joe Biden and John McCain made stops in Moldova and encouraged speedy western integration, meeting with kleptocrats like Plahotniuc and celebrating the new age of western “liberalism” that would transform the eastern bloc.

With such a powerful machine supporting them, Plahotniuc and other local Moldovan kleptocrats had every reason to feel as though they had the power of gods. The lords of high finance of London and Wall Street had ensured their unchallenged success for years, and with Moldova’s full integration into the NATO/EU cage nothing would hold them back… but with this hubris came a fair dose of sloppiness.

“The Theft of the Century” and Its Aftermath

Working closely with Israeli-Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor and fellow oligarchs Vyacheslav Platon and Vlad Filat, Plahotniuc carried out a blatant “theft of the century” to the tune of $1 billion stolen from Moldova (representing 1/8th of the nation’s GDP) between 2011-2014. The model was simple and based on the use of offshore shell companies which laundered money and received fraudulent loans issued by the Moldovan Central Bank. That bank had itself taken over three major financial institutions (the Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Sociala) which extended fraudulent loans and businesses controlled by Ilan Shor and others within Plahotniuc’s network to the tune of $1 billion. $100 million were used directly by Plahotniuc to purchase, banks, businesses, hotels and other luxury real estate around Europe and Moldova.

Even though the facts of this fraud could not long be kept secret, Plahotniuc’s control on the levers of justice (especially the Constitutional Court which is packed with his partisans) ensured that little could be done to bring the oligarch to justice.

Vlad Filat was sacrificed by his former partner in 2016 and given 3 years in prison for bribes and participation in the heist while Ilan Shor was charged with laundering and embezzlement in abstentia though never saw a jail cell. In April 2017, Vyacheslav Platon was found guilty and given 18 years in prison but Plahotniuc never faced a single charge in Moldova. Things were a bit different elsewhere however and in 2017, Moscow’s Basmanny Court found the oligarch guilty of attempted murder.

In 2019, a Moscow court found Plahotniuc guilty of drug trafficking and money laundering and he was also charged with 28 counts of smuggling and sales of drugs (mostly hashish from North Africa)- and to these charges Plahotniuc obviously cried “Russian fantasies and fake news”.

During the hot phase of blowback during 2016, Plahotniuc was a guest of the pro-NATO Atlantic Council in Washington where he met with Victoria Nuland and other members of the Obama regime change party. The ‘Atlantic Council Moldova Program’ was also advancing a steady stream of pro-NATO propaganda funded by Jashi’s Trans Oil Group (on whose board sat former U.S. Ambassador Chaudhry).

Upon his return from America, Plahotniuc speedily moved to take full control of the Democratic Party.

In spite of his control of mass media, news of this “theft of the century” spread widely, and in an impoverished nation ranked lowest on the European Union poverty index where nearly 50% of the male population lives and works abroad as cheap labor, public tolerance for Plahotniuc’s sank to new lows with a 96% disapproval rating. The Democratic Party machine fell from favor and the pro-Russian Socialist Party again took power under Igor Dodon.

President Dodon wasted no time accelerating Moldova’s observer status in the Eurasian Economic Union which was made official on March 14, 2018 when Dodon called for a pro-Europe and pro-Russia policy (a blasphemy for some technocrats). At this time, Putin laid out the philosophy of EU-EAEU cooperation saying: “The Eurasian Union will be built on universal integration principles as an integral part of a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”

In a February 2020 interview, Dodon echoed this orientation stating: “I believe in a big Europe, from Lisbon to Vladivostok. It was Charles de Gaulle who came up with this idea and its repeated often by various world leaders. I think this is the only solution to make Europe stronger.”

This had to be stopped.

From 2017-2019, the Plahotniuk apparatus licked its wounds, regrouped, and waited for the right moment to strike… and on June 7, 2019 that moment came.

Plahotniuc Attacks and Trips

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hree months had passed since the February 2019 elections and a government had not yet formed. The three opposing parties that each won over 20% of the votes included Plahotniuc Democratic Party, the pro-EU ACUM party of PM Maia Sandu and the Socialist Party of Igor Dodon. Sandu’s role as a former World Bank executive didn’t bode well, but luckily her recognition that an alliance with Plahotniuc was political suicide kept her from making a devil's pact and at the last minute chose to form a coalition government with Dodon in defense of the nation’s true interests where both parties united in the common cause to flush the swamp of oligarchs.

This alliance was arranged at the same moment that Plahotniuc’s Constitutional Court deemed the February elections invalid (party leaders have 3 months to shape a new government after elections). The court demanded that Dodon be deposed as President (for failing to call new elections), and the new coalition government declared null and void. Former PM Pavel Filip refused to recognize the new government calling it illegal and demanding a new election while Plahotniuc waited with bated breath for his moment to take over.