100M euros pledged to Moldova

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said more than 100 million euros ($102 million) were raised at a donors conference, Monday, to help assist Europe’s poorest country, Moldova, which is suffering massive blackouts, an acute energy crisis, heavy refugee flows and potential security threats from the war in neighboring Ukraine.

Monday’s international aid conference in Paris was cochaired by France, Germany, and Romania in support of Moldova and aimed to achieve “concrete and immediate assistance” for the land-locked former Soviet republic, according to the French Foreign Ministry. Two previous conferences for Moldova this year also raised hundreds of millions of euros, but as the war drags on and winter begins to grip, its needs are growing.

Broad blackouts temporarily hit more than a half-dozen Moldovan cities last week, as the Russian military pounded infrastructure targets across Ukraine. Moldova’s Soviet-era energy systems remain interconnected with Ukraine, which is why the Russian missile barrage triggered the automatic shutdown of a supply line.