After today’s Independence Day parades, Moldova needs hard security guarantees against Moscow

On Thursday (27 August), Moldova marks 35 years of independence, and for the first time in its history, the day will be marked with a military parade through Chișinău.

That single fact says more about European security than any communiqué.

A country whose 1994 constitution enshrines permanent neutrality has decided that 2026 is the year to put its soldiers on display. It is a signal, aimed at Moscow and Tiraspol as much as at its own citizens, that Moldova no longer believes ambiguity keeps it safe.

The signal deserves an answer from Europe, and so far it hasn’t had one.

A pattern Moldova cannot afford to repeat

In 2025, Moldova’s intelligence service and independent monitors warned that Russia was working to derail the country’s elections through disinformation and financing tied to Moscow, to block Moldova’s EU integration.

The pro-European camp won anyway, but the margin was not lost on anyone: this could easily go the other way if Moldovans conclude that Europe’s embrace stops at rhetoric.

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The facts on the ground haven’t moved. An estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Russian troops remain in Transnistria, a breakaway strip of Moldovan territory Chișinău does not control. Hybrid attacks have become routine.

And Moldova sits outside every hard security structure in Europe: not in Nato, and not yet in the EU either.

Moldova is already doing its part

Moldova’s defence budget has climbed from around 0.3 percent of GDP in 2020 to roughly 0.6 percent today, and its newly adopted National Defence Development Programme targets 1 percent by 2030, a near tripling for one of Europe’s poorest economies.

Moldova has also built a web of bilateral defence partnerships. France signed a defence cooperation agreement in March 2024. The United Kingdom followed in November 2024, launching its own UK-Moldova Defence and Security Partnership. Germany’s cooperation runs deepest, where Berlin has delivered 19 Piranha-3H armoured personnel carriers, and in 2026 began handing over newer Piranha-5 vehicles.

Layered on top is the EU-Moldova Security and Defence Partnership signed in May 2024 — the first such agreement the EU has struck with any non-member state — plus an EU Partnership Mission and close to €200m in European Peace Facility funding since 2021.

This is a genuinely dense network of support. What it is not, is a guarantee. Training, armoured vehicles and funding tell Moldova that Europe wishes it well.

None of it tells Russia that an attack on Moldova carries a defined cost.

Precedent is not the obstacle, political will is

The usual objection is that Moldova cannot be offered a security guarantee because it is not, and may not soon be, a Nato member. That objection does not survive contact with recent practice.

Security assurances short of full membership are not a novelty. In May 2022, the UK signed mutual security declarations with Finland and Sweden , committing to their defence during the window between Nato application and accession.

Most relevantly, the UK, France, Germany and Italy each signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine in 2024, meaning explicit commitments to a non-NATO state contesting Russian aggression, from the same capitals that already fund and train Moldova’s armed forces.

Moldova is not asking to be treated as a Nato ally. It is asking for a bridge instrument that converts today’s advisory support into an explicit political commitment with consequences attached.

There is also hard infrastructure on Moldova’s doorstep.

The Aegis Ashore missile shield at Deveselu in Romania is a Nato asset, and its coverage already extends into the airspace of a country it was never built to protect. Any serious discussion of Moldova’s security has to include Nato itself, not only EU capitals.

What Moldova urgently requires before the parade ends

Symbolism without follow-through would be worse than no gesture at all.

Moldova urgently requires a bilateral security-assurance track, modelled on the UK-Finland/Sweden declarations and the 2024 Ukraine agreements, built by a coalition that already includes Romania, France, Germany and the UK; a seat at Nato’s table on regional missile and air defence planning; faster inclusion in EU joint defence procurement, so Piranha-style donations become the floor of its modernisation, not the ceiling; and a published timetable, not just a shared direction of travel, for both a security-assurance track and EU accession.

The 2025 election showed Moldovan opinion can hold under pressure, but it needs to see the runway, not just the destination.

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None of this requires Nato membership, and none of it is unprecedented. It requires Europe’s capitals, and the alliance itself, to treat Moldova’s independence day not as an occasion for solidarity statements, but as a deadline for a decision already delayed too long.

A country does not triple its defence spending, sign pacts with three major powers, and put its army on parade for the first time in 35 years because it feels secure. Europe’s answer should not be applause. It should be an offer.