Moldova is giving neutrality a more active meaning. Domestic politics may set the limit

Neutrality without equal distance

Article 11 of Moldova’s Constitution declares the country permanently neutral and bars the deployment of foreign troops on its territory. Sandu’s Kyiv remarks did not alter that framework, and Chișinău has announced no move to change the status quo.

What has changed, Stroe argues, is how neutrality is interpreted. Rather than requiring equal political distance from the parties to the war, it is increasingly treated as a status that permits active cooperation on defensive tasks such as surveillance, early warning and information exchange, as long as Moldova does not become directly involved in the conflict or join a military alliance.

Stroe also draws the boundary clearly. He sees no Moldovan troops in Ukraine, no near-term plan for NATO membership and no room for official language that blurs the difference between solidarity and direct military involvement. Sandu’s statement in Kyiv that it is hard to imagine a free Moldova without a free Ukraine therefore reads less as an abandonment of neutrality than as an acknowledgement of security interdependence.

That interpretation separates neutrality from passivity. A neutral state can still monitor its airspace, share warnings and protect infrastructure against threats that cross borders. For Moldova, the argument has become harder to avoid because the war has repeatedly entered its security environment through drones, airspace violations and energy disruption.

Defensive cooperation below the alliance threshold

Airspace surveillance and early warning are, in Stroe’s assessment, the least controversial areas for deeper cooperation with Romania and Ukraine. They are strictly defensive and respond to a threat Moldova has already experienced dozens of times.

Sandu said on 24 August that Moldova was strengthening its capacity to monitor the airspace and would continue exchanging information on aerial threats with Ukraine and Romania. Two days later, NATO’s Political Committee completed its first visit to Chișinău, with discussions focused on regional security challenges and further support for Moldova’s resilience. NATO explicitly framed that support as being provided in full respect of Moldova’s constitutional neutrality.

“Neutrality is not disappearing. Its practical meaning is expanding to include defensive cooperation that stops short of alliance membership or direct involvement in the war.”

The same logic was visible at the 27 August Moldova-Romania-Ukraine trilateral meeting in Chișinău. Sandu called for “a sky monitored together”, while the three presidents discussed repeated Russian drone incursions into Moldovan and Romanian airspace and the need to strengthen defensive capabilities.

Stroe places protection of critical infrastructure immediately after airspace monitoring as a natural field for cooperation. The experience of Moldova’s energy crises has already normalised regional coordination in an area where resilience depends on information, functioning connections and the ability to keep essential systems operating under pressure.

The political ceiling is at home

The more visible this cooperation becomes, however, the easier it is to portray it as evidence that the government has chosen a military camp. Stroe sees this as a real political risk, especially in an environment where pro-Russian opposition actors can use joint declarations, visible cooperation with Kyiv or symbolic gestures towards Ukraine as proof that the authorities are moving beyond neutrality.

The narrative is that the current leadership is “dragging Moldova into the war”. It does not need to demonstrate that Moldova has become a belligerent. It only needs to make defensive cooperation look indistinguishable from military alignment.

Stroe argues that such claims become more credible where trust in institutions is weak and where audiences are heavily exposed to Russian-language television and Telegram channels. He points in particular to parts of the rural and Russian-speaking population as potentially more receptive to the claim that closer cooperation with Ukraine and Romania puts the country at greater risk.

That makes the communication problem inseparable from the security problem. For Stroe, the key is to maintain a clear distinction between humanitarian or political solidarity and military involvement. If every defensive measure is explained mainly through solidarity with Ukraine, opponents have more room to present it as evidence of alignment. If the same measure is tied directly to protecting Moldovan citizens, airspace and infrastructure, its defensive purpose is harder to obscure.

The next test is therefore not whether Moldova abandons neutrality. It is whether Chișinău can continue expanding practical cooperation with Romania and Ukraine while keeping the boundary between solidarity, defensive coordination and military involvement politically credible at home.

Expert contribution

This analysis draws on a written exchange with David Stroe, a Bucharest-based graduate in diplomacy and national security with previous research experience at the Center for Conflict Prevention and Early Warning. His views are attributed throughout the article.