rising prices are continuing to hit president biden s poll ratings. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. russia s invasion of ukraine has raised anxiety levels across eastern europe, nowhere more so than moldova. this former outpost of the soviet empire shares a border with ukraine. it also hosts a pro moscow breakaway territory. it is poor, beset with corruption, and it could ultimately be in vladimir putin s sights. my guest is nicu popescu, moldova s foreign minister and deputy pm. how can moldova best protect itself? nicu popescu, in chisinau, welcome to hardtalk. it s good talking to you, stephen, hello. it s a pleasure to have you on the show. now, mr deputy prime minister, you ve had more than 100 days of observing vladimir putin s invasion strategy in ukraine. right now, do you fear that putin represents a threat to moldova, too? i think this war is making every single person living on the european continent not only feel the insecurity
moldova s foreign minister and deputy pm. how can moldova best protect itself? nicu popescu, in chisinau, welcome to hardtalk. it s good talking to you, stephen, hello. it s a pleasure to have you on the show. now, mr deputy prime minister, you ve had more than 100 days of observing vladimir putin s invasion strategy in ukraine. right now, do you fear that putin represents a threat to moldova, too? i think this war is making every single person living on the european continent not only feel the insecurity generated by this war, generated by this blatant breach of international law. and of course we, as all other people living on the european continent, feel the impact of this insecurity. of course, given our geography, our history, this insecurity in moldova is indeed felt quite strongly. at the same time, we are, of course, ready for all possible developments, for all possible contingencies. but in our assessment and this assessment is shared by our partners throughout the
the outbreaks have raised concerns about a city wide shutdown just as china s second largest city shanghai re emerged from a two month lockdown. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i m steven sackur. russia s invasion of ukraine has raised anxiety levels across eastern europe, nowhere more so than moldova. this former outpost of the soviet empire shares a border with ukraine. it also hosts a pro moscow breakaway territory. it is poor, beset with corruption, and it could ultimately be in vladimir putin s sights. my guest is nicu popescu, moldova s foreign minister and deputy pm. how can moldova best protect itself? nicu popescu, in chisinau, welcome to hardtalk. it s good talking to you, stephen, hello. it s a pleasure to have you on the show. now, mr deputy prime minister, you ve had more than 100 days of observing vladimir putin s invasion strategy in ukraine. right now, do you fear that putin represents a threat to moldova, too? i think this war is making every
my guest is nicu popescu, moldova s foreign minister and deputy pm. how can moldova best protect itself? nicu popescu, in chisinau, welcome to hardtalk. it s good talking to you, stephen, hello. it s a pleasure to have you on the show. now, mr deputy prime minister, you ve had more than 100 days of observing vladimir putin s invasion strategy in ukraine. right now, do you fear that putin represents a threat to moldova, too? i think this war is making every single person living on the european continent not only feel the insecurity generated by this war, generated by this blatant breach of international law. and of course we, as all other people living on the european continent, feel the impact of this insecurity. of course, given our geography, our history, this insecurity in moldova is indeed felt quite strongly. at the same time, we are, of course, ready for all possible developments, for all possible contingencies. but in our assessment and this assessment is shared by o
That s very clear, and what s also felt by our citizens, irrespective of what their native language is. so, the statements of the russian foreign ministry are manifestly untrue. we ve been. have you spoken to your counterpart lavrov, sergei lavrov about this? the last time we spoke with sergei lavrov was in mid november, when i had a bilateral visit to moscow. since then, we have not talked about that. but our colleagues at the level of our ambassador in moscow and the russian ambassador in chisinau, we do pass on messages to the russian federation, and vice versa. and we have indeed very clearly stated our disagreement with this assessment, and we find it untrue and unconstructive, and unuseful. right, but like i say, the tensions are clearly there, and your biggest problem of all, maybe, is that you ve got a very feeble, a very weak military. your military spending is if i may say so in regional terms, very, very low. you only have about 5,000 full time soldiers, hardly any