Moldova: Small Enough to Fail, Big Enough for Putin

THE shenanigans of a tiny group of politicians and businesspeople in Europe’s poorest country are never going to make headlines elsewhere. But if they turn their sorely ill-governed state into a failed one, that could change fast. The country is “a ticking time bomb”, says Alina Inayeh, the head of the Black Sea Trust, an organisation that promotes regional co-operation. If it blows up, says a minister who asked for anonymity, “people will come on the streets and Russia will capture Moldova.”