Balázs Jarábik recently visited Moldova ahead of its crucial parliamentary elections. The country is experiencing growing political polarization: the government, led by the PAS party, retains strong EU backing, while the newly formed Patriotic Bloc is gaining ground by tapping into social discontent—and Russian money. The political center is hollowing out, echoing last year’s presidential race, and with 40% of voters still undecided, the outcome remains uncertain. His backgrounder, explaining why Moldova matters as Ukraine’s soft underbelly and what these dynamics mean for the country’s domestic stability and EU trajectory, was published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Essential Ukraine is the bi-monthly flagship publication of Minority Report hosted by R.Politik, offering in-depth analysis of Ukraine's internal political landscape, institutions, and societal transformations. Unlike other services, Essential Ukraine prioritizes depth and realism over frequency, focusing on the structural and societal changes influenced by the ongoing conflict. In the latest seventh edition, examines Ukraine’s efforts to preserve cohesion, manage expectations, and sustain wartime governance in the absence of elections. With Russia maintaining the initiative on multiple fronts and Western engagement increasingly calibrated between support and leverage, the most plausible scenario is one of deferred implementation: Kyiv aims to hold the line, impose costs on Moscow, and wait for the Russian offensive to stall by late autumn without achieving significant gains.
