Whose victory? Moldova’s battle for 9 May7 min read
Moldova’s 9 May 2026 commemorations revealed how institutional integration in the European Union advances faster than the formation of a domestic consensus for accession to the bloc. The EU-tabled €120 million defense package for Moldova, alongside accelerated accession talks, aims to lock in the country’s European orientation before Russia can mobilize the 49.6% of the population who in 2024’s referendum voted against enshrining in the Constitution the commitment to join the Union.
On 8 May 2026, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas proposed doubling the European Peace Facility funding for Moldova to €120 million annually, making it the bloc’s largest defense assistance package for any country outside Ukraine. The announcement came just one day before Moldova’s annual confrontation over 9 May, which symbolically pitted pro-EU demonstrations against pro-Russia ones.
On the one hand, in fact, 22 EU Member States organized concerts and exhibitions at the European Village stage, which occupied Chișinău’s central square; while on the other, thousands marched across the city carrying Soviet banners to honor Victory Day at the Eternity Memorial. The two commemorations, separated by geography but not by political stakes, captured a State in geopolitical transition, one where institutional integration with the West is advancing faster than the population’s consensus for the EU.
Filling that gap is precisely what Brussels and Chișinău are working on. Moldova’s EU membership drive gained urgency after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine exposed the risks of remaining in Moscow’s orbit. It sharpened further on the occasion of Moldova’s October 2024 EU referendum, which aimed at enshrining in the Constitution the country’s commitment to join the Union and make it more difficult for future governments to move back under the Russian wing. According to President Maia Sandu, in fact, Russia spent hundreds of millions of euros attempting to favour a negative result through vote-buying, disinformation, and cyberattacks.
The referendum passed, but only just, with 50.39 percent in favor. The 49.6 percent who voted against represents a structural vulnerability that Russia has already demonstrated the capacity and willingness to exploit. The EU’s May 2026 military aid and accelerated accession talks are, in this context, an effort to institutionalize Moldova’s Western trajectory before that vulnerability can be weaponized again.
Securitizing historical narrative
Moldova celebrated 9 May as Victory Day for decades, honoring Soviet soldiers who defeated Nazi Germany. In 2017, the government decided to start commemorating Europe Day as well, which is observed across the EU on the same day and marks Robert Schuman’s 1950 declaration launching European integration. The dual commemoration created immediate friction, and that friction has only deepened as Moldova’s geopolitical choices have grown more consequential.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Moldova to act. Authorities banned St. George ribbons – honouring the Soviet soldiers who died in WWII – and other symbols associated with the Russian military aggression in 2022. The shift had substance beyond symbolism. Think tank Cultures of History Forum conducted a research that documented how Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s State foreign aid agency, had been organizing Victory Day events in Moldova modeled on Russian commemorations. When foreign State agencies run political events in another country’s capital, the line between cultural preservation and influence operations has already been crossed.
By 2024, the Moldovan government organized demonstrations in the capital’s main square for Europe Day, while Victory Day marches happened elsewhere in the city. That same year, Balkan Insight counted 20,000 people attending Europe Day against 10,000 supporting Victory Day.
The 2026 arrangements of 9 May carried this further. The European Village occupied the Great National Assembly Square under the theme “Europe is YOU: Peace, Freedom, Growth”. However, Polish broadcaster TVP World reported that thousands still marched for Victory Day, carrying banners despite restrictions. The main square could not accommodate both commemorations: the government had chosen.
Against this backdrop, Kallas defended the Europe Day emphasis at the celebrations: “Because atrocities for my country (Estonia, A.n.) began on that day, we cannot celebrate 9 May as Victory Day. We all have different pasts, but we must focus on our common future”. Kallas’ statement reflected a deliberate strategy of reframing Moldova’s historical narrative around shared European democratic values: rule of law, human rights, and forward looking integration. This contrasted with the Soviet-centered historical narrative that Russia consistently mobilizes for political leverage in post-Soviet states. By emphasizing a ‘common future’ over ‘different pasts’, Kallas positioned Europe Day as embodying the institutional and normative frameworks of the EU, while implicitly casting Victory Day commemorations as anchored to a historical moment Russia weaponizes.
Defense assistance and the speed of integration
The cultural shift is underwritten by concrete security commitments. Kallas’s announcement proposed doubling European Peace Facility funding to €120 million annually. “Through the European Peace Facility, we have already provided €200 million worth of assistance”, she stated, noting that a new EU-funded radar system had been delivered to help Moldova detect Russian drones near its borders.
At the same press conference, Kallas stated Brussels wanted to “move fast” on accession negotiations, adding that “you never know when there comes a government that might have a bilateral issue”. The diplomatically hedged comment acknowledges that Moldova’s pro-European trajectory is not guaranteed, and that the window for consolidating institutional ties may be narrower than the accession timeline suggests.
Moldova’s constitutional neutrality prohibits the stationing of foreign military troops inside the country, as enshrined in Article 11 of the Constitution. However, Russian forces have occupied Transnistria since the 1990s, making that neutrality effectively moot. However, the EU cannot officially disregard this legal constraint and limits its strategic involvement in the country to providing assistance. Rather than stationing foreign troops, the EU builds Moldova’s indigenous defense capabilities, including airspace monitoring and radar coverage, to compensate for the security gap created by both constitutional restrictions and the Russian occupation of Transnistria. In this light, the €120 million package represents an effort to redefine Moldovan neutrality as an active indigenous defense capability. This approach accelerates integration in the Union by demonstrating that the EU partnership can provide security without violating Moldova’s constitutional framework, making Western alignment institutionally compatible within legal commitments.
The 49.6% problem
Western support gained more momentum following Russia’s October 2024 interference campaign. Investigations led by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems revealed approximately 10 percent of the Moldovan electorate were influenced through vote-buying. President Maia Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity nevertheless won the September 2025 parliamentary elections, securing a mandate to continue integrating in the European Union. While the electoral victories are real, so is the fragility beneath them.
The 49.6 percent who voted against modifying the Constitution with pro-EU commitments in 2024, represents a substantial constituency whose preferences Russia has already demonstrated the capacity to amplify through financial and informational means. Russian state media wasted no time framing Moldova’s 9 May policies as evidence of Western imposition. Pravda Moldova, a pro-Kremlin publication, characterized Victory Day restrictions as Moldova losing the “sovereign right to interpret its own history”. Whether or not that framing gains domestic traction matters considerably for the stability of Moldova’s European trajectory.
President Sandu has attempted to bridge this divide by framing 9 May as a day of reconciliation: “The memory of those who were killed is not a reason for celebration, but a lesson”. The TVP World footage from the 2026 march, in fact, showed participants in Soviet military uniforms citing family history and relatives who fought in World War II. While some participants may be genuinely commemorating family heritage, Russia has consistently used these sentiments as vehicles for political mobilization. The overlap is precisely what makes the 9 May divide politically consequential: the same constituency that marches for Victory Day is the constituency Russia targeted with vote-buying schemes in 2024 and would need to reverse Moldova’s European trajectory through electoral means.
Institutionalizing the European choice
Moldova’s 9 May commemorations illustrate a State in geopolitical transition, where institutional integration with the West is advancing faster than domestic consensus. The prominence of Europe Day in the capital’s central square, underwritten by a historic €120 million in EU defense assistance, demonstrates Chișinău’s determination to securitize its historical narrative and redefine its neutrality.
Yet the parallel Victory Day marches and the razor-thin referendum margin reveal a persistent vulnerability. On the one side of the barricade, for the EU and the Sandu administration, the strategic imperative is no longer simply defending the European choice against interference, but institutionalizing that choice before the societal divide can be weaponized to reverse it.
On the opposite side, Russia retains meaningful leverage through Moldova’s self-proclaimed independent republic of Transnistria, with its residual information networks, and a domestic constituency that has proven responsive to financial inducements. Whether Brussels can move fast enough through defense packages, accession benchmarks, and economic integration to make the country’sWestern orientation irreversible before that leverage is deployed again is the central question Moldova’s European future depends on.
