My classmate, Putin's foe

Maia Sandu, now Moldova's president, shares her fears on the revanchist threat posed by Russia to the former Soviet satellite states.

- Li Xueying

The woods are Maia Sandu's sanctuary. On the rare weekends when she can get away from the unceasing work of running a country, she heads out into the countryside of Moldova to feel the soil beneath her, and to breathe.

Sometimes, she is with her sister Veronica; at other times, with her dog, a rescue stray aptly called Codrut - "Little Forest" in Romanian, the main language used in the eastern European nation of some 2.5 million wedged between Ukraine and Romania.

The Moldovan President has invariably been lauded in the Western media for her resolve in facing down Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lying west of Ukraine with which it shares a 1,200km border, Moldova is at the forefront of former Soviet satellite states resisting Mr Putin's bid to pull them back into Moscow's orbit, and combating what officials say are grey-zone warfare tactics from disinformation to illegal electoral financing.

Things are set to get grimmer. On Feb 12, US President Donald Trump and Mr Putin agreed to start talks for an end to the war in Ukraine, bypassing Europe and Ukraine, and sparking fears on what the latter might be forced to give up in the name of peace.

This development holds dire security implications for Europe; worse for the front-line states of eastern Europe, and felt perhaps most acutely in Moldova.

In a text over the weekend from Munich, where she was attending a security conference at which US Vice-President J.D. Vance questioned if the US and Europe still share the same values and agenda, Ms Sandu noted that the night after Mr Trump and Mr Putin spoke, Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine. Several drones crashed in Moldova.

"No one wants peace more than Ukraine. And we in Moldova want peace, too - but lasting peace. A peace that includes Ukraine in the talks, with the European Union at the table. A peace that keeps us in the free world.