“The people of Moldova have reaffirmed their trust in your leadership, stability and commitment to a European future,” wrote European Council President Charles Michel.
Moldova has found itself under enormous pressure since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022, as Moscow has resorted to energy blackmail and voter intimidation to prise Chișinău away from the West. The ordeal has only brought Moldova closer to Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated Sandu during a phone call Monday and invited her to visit Ukraine. “We reaffirmed our commitment to work together on our path to a common goal — membership in the European Union. We coordinated our next steps, and I invited President Sandu to visit Ukraine,” he wrote.
Moldova’s pro-Russian socialist party, on the other hand, called Sandu “an illegitimate president” on Monday, claiming Stoianoglo had won the majority of votes cast within the country. (Moldova’s diaspora includes hundreds of thousands of nationals living mainly in Romania, Ukraine, Italy and Germany; a record 327,000 votes were cast from abroad on Sunday, 82 percent of them for Sandu.)
“Maia Sandu is an illegitimate president, recognized only by her sponsors and supporters abroad. The Moldovan people feel betrayed and robbed,” the socialists wrote in a statement.
“Alexandr Stoianoglo, the president of the people of Moldova, won the real victory in the presidential elections,” the statement continued. “The Socialist Party of the Republic of Moldova does not recognize the vote from sections abroad, because of which Sandu was declared the winner.”
