NATO watches Moldova’s sky while European leaders meet. As Kyiv prepares a counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion, NATO will monitor Moldova’s skies.
The EU’s 27 member states and 20 other European countries meeting at a castle in Moldovan wine country 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Ukrainian territory provides a security and organizational dilemma for a 2.5 million-person country squeezed between Ukraine and NATO member Romania.
According to NATO, AWACS surveillance planes will monitor the summit site through Friday.
Since Russia invaded 15 months ago, Moldova has repeatedly uncovered Ukrainian missile debris.
“NATO AWACS can detect aircraft, missiles, and drones hundreds of kilometres away, making them an important early warning capability,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said.
Ukraine will dominate the summit as Kyiv prepares a counteroffensive with Western weapons to oust Russian occupiers.
The meeting invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“The presence of these leaders in our country is a clear message that Moldova is not alone and neither is our neighbour Ukraine, which for a year and three months has been standing against the barbaric invasion of Russia,” President Maia Sandu told reporters alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The EU wants to use the meeting to address tensions in northern Kosovo between the ruling ethnic Albanian majority and minority Serbs, which have escalated into bloodshed in recent days, leading NATO to send 700 extra peacekeepers.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he had pushed Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in Slovakia on Wednesday to help defuse the crisis and hoped to tell Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Moldova.
We must de-escalate. “We must defuse,” Borrell told reporters in Chisinau on Wednesday evening.
“We have gone too far and the levels of violence we experienced at the beginning of this week must cease immediately. Otherwise, it’s risky.”
The summit will also discuss energy, cybersecurity, and migration.
The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia will meet with Macron, Scholz, and EU officials to discuss other European problems.
Moldova, like Ukraine, applied to join the EU last year following the Russian invasion, and Chisinau hopes to use the summit to highlight improvements and persuade leaders to start discussions immediately.
As food and energy prices rose due to the conflict, Moldova accepted the most Ukrainian migrants per capita.
The government has accused Russia of seeking to destabilize the mostly Romanian-speaking country by influencing the separatist movement in Transdniestria, which is mostly Russian-speaking.
