CHISINAU -- Moldovan President Maia Sandu marked the 31st anniversary of the small nation’s independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union with a speech that included a condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a push for the country's eventual EU membership.
“Russia's unjust war against Ukraine clearly shows us the price of freedom," she told a crowd on August 27 at the Great National Assembly Square in the capital, Chisinau.
"The war will end, and we will be able to get out of these crises stronger, more resilient," she said, speaking alongside Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita and Igor Grosu, the speaker of the parliament.
Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, has a long border with Ukraine and has been hosting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the start of Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has some 1,500 troops in Moldova's Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniester, a sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova proper and Ukraine.
In recent months, Transdniester separatists claimed that Kyiv had orchestrated what they claimed were shootings, explosions, and drone incursions, raising fears that Moldova could be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine.
Moldova's parliament voted on July 28 to extend a state of emergency for 60 days after the government said it still needed special powers to deal with the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Gavrilita told lawmakers that there are continuing risks to energy and border security and the need to manage the flow of refugees from Ukraine.
"The risks for Moldova due to the war in Ukraine remain high. The government needs additional powers," Gavrilita said at the time. The extension came into force on August 8 and will continue through October 8.
In June, the European Union formally agreed to take the “historic” step of making Moldova and Ukraine candidates for EU membership amid Moscow’s bitter denunciations of the two countries’ intensions to join the bloc.
In her Independence Day speech, Sandu, a pro-Western, U.S.-educated former World Bank official, said that "this year, Moldova became a candidate country for accession to the European Union. Moldova can become truly strong, able to defend its citizens only in the family of European countries.”
"If some ask what freedom and democracy are used for when prices rise, we will answer them: Our freedom makes us stronger, gives us voice, dignity, and power, makes us stand upright, not fearful, and judge by our own interest, not by the dictate of someone outside," she told the crowd.