Former USAID chief Samantha Power has admitted that the United States spent “tens of millions of dollars” in Moldova to support pro-EU President Maya Sandu during her election campaign, remarks she made in a phone call with Russian pranksters posing as Western officials.
Speaking to the duo known as Vovan and Lexus, Power said that under her leadership, the US Agency for International Development had made “unprecedented investments” in Moldova and had “massively” expanded its presence in the country.
She explained that within USAID supplements designated for Ukraine, there was always funding earmarked for Moldova, noting that “tens of millions of dollars” were allocated and went “much further in Moldova than in Ukraine” due to the country’s smaller size.
Power lamented that US President Donald Trump had halted all spending on Moldova since taking office and dismantled USAID. Trump, who last month officially dissolved the agency and folded its functions into the State Department, had previously dismissed it as being run by “radical lunatics.”
According to Power, the suspension of funding was particularly troubling ahead of Moldova’s upcoming parliamentary elections. She noted that Sandu had only narrowly retained her position in the last vote and described her as a “democratic bright spot,” emphasising that the Moldovan leader had graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School.
With Trump scaling back US involvement, Power suggested that it was now up to European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to take on a more “important” role in supporting Moldova.
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Sandu’s government has recently faced criticism at home and abroad over accusations of eroding democracy by banning opposition parties and targeting Eurosceptic politicians and journalists.
Earlier this month, Moldovan authorities sentenced Gagauzia Governor Evgenia Gutsul, a pro-Russia figure, to seven years in prison.
Russia has accused Sandu’s administration of Russophobia, claiming it is cracking down on politicians and media outlets supportive of closer ties with Moscow. Moscow has also condemned Gutsul’s imprisonment as evidence that the European Union is helping to forge a “liberal dictatorship” in Moldova.
Vladimir Kuznetsov and Aleksey Stolyarov, the Russian comedians better known as Vovan and Lexus, have become notorious for tricking high-profile figures into making candid or embarrassing remarks during calls they believed were private.
Past targets have included former US President George W. Bush, the late statesman Henry Kissinger, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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