From "The Analyst":

THE MOLDOVA QUESTION

It has no coast, it has one of the lowest per capita incomes in Europe, almost nobody flies there except its own tiny airline. And its eastern side is a separatist area with alleged Russian ‘peacekeeper forces’ who spend most of their time spying on Ukraine as they protect a massive ammo dump right on Ukraine’s border.
Transnistria is operated almost as the personal fiefdom of the Sharif family. They control everything from the mobile network to the supermarkets and the petrol stations. In places the area is barely 1km wide. Moldovan military capabilities are minimal and they have no means of dealing with another outbreak of fighting.
Moldova itself - once known as Bessarabia, was Russian, then after WW1 became part of Rumania - which it has most in common with ethnically and culturally. In 1939 the USSR demanded it back and Hitler acquiesced in an updated territorial redistribution post Nazi-Soviet Pact, forcing Romania to cede it. Then in 1941 the Romanians took it back as they assisted in Operation Barbarossa. By late 1944 the Russians took it back again and kept it as the Bessarabian SSR, until the fall of the Soviet Union when it declared itself an independent republic and used the name Moldova 🇲🇩.
It seemed a relatively safe spot. Jammed between Ukraine and Romania it had no natural enemies.
But Russia never saw it that way. Like many of the territories it seized it colonised them with ethnic Russians, especially around the military bases on the border with Ukraine, that eventually broke away as Transnistria.
The west did what it always does and looked away. It was a nowhere worth knowing about backwater with no resources and no money to be made. Neither Ukraine or Romania were too happy about the Russians sending peacekeepers but it was what the separatists wanted and the only way of solving the problem. And that’s how it’s stood for most of this century to date.
Suddenly Moldova is right on the frontlines again. Its neighbour is under siege, the Russians are literally on their doorstep in Transnistria and they’re not in any military or political alliance. The current President Madam Maia Sandu, treads a forceful but determined line - EU membership is on the cards. To forestall any changes to that path she’s just called a referendum to ensure that should it be a positive outcome, no future government can change that process.
The opposition party is rabidly pro-Russian and their leader has recently just been to Moscow asking for Putin’s help to ‘save’ the country from the west. The country is riven with Russian disinformation campaigns and they never stop trying to undermine the elected government. Moldova with a pro-Russian leadership right on Ukraine’s border and NATO’s is a dream condition.
Recently there have been suggestions the Russians would send in airborne troops to assist in overthrowing President Sandu. In any other time they would do it but I can’t imagine how they could ever cobble together a force even if they wanted to. The airborne forces were largely obliterated in their original form last year on the frontlines.
The question then, that remains unanswered is what if President Sandu asks Romania to intervene to save it - with possible Ukrainian assistance? Would they do it? I think they well might. Romania would never have thought of it before but now, after what’s happened it feels like it’s on the frontline too. NATO is building its biggest base ever in Romania, at the cost of $2.5 billion. It knows it’s not alone and its accommodated everything NATO has asked of it. Romania is turning into a bulwark and a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Seeing Moldova fall to an illegal pro-Russian take over isn’t going to be acceptable. Not any more.
Any potential crisis in Moldova will need to be dealt with quickly. Only Romania can do that. No doubt Hungary would be up in arms about it but there’s a cost for doing anything.
Moldova deserves the opportunity of being in the EU and eventually NATO, with Ukraine.