You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast covering strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.

My name is Nick Danforth, editor and host of today's show.

Delated to be here at the Moldovan embassy off Connecticut

Avenue with Ambassador Verele Ursu, who is kind enough to sit down and discuss

the impact of the war in Ukraine as well as Moldova's evolving

security situation and the European security architecture writ large.

Ambassador Ursu, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me and bringing the spotlight on my country Moldova.

We have a number of questions to ask you, the first that I'll start out with every time I talk to any of your colleagues, anytime the spotlight at least

or on the rocks has shown on Moldova, I'm always struck by the extent to which Moldova

has been impacted by the conflict in Ukraine,

more than many of us looking at this from Washington

might expect.

So could you begin by giving us a little bit

of an overview of what that impact has been?

The Russian aggression against Ukraine changed dramatically the regional context,

but and Moldova was one of the countries probably most affected by the war in Ukraine.

Moldova shares the longest border with Ukraine of all the neighboring countries.

And since the day one of the Russian aggression,

the Moldovan government took the decision

to keep the borders open and to allow any Ukrainians that were seeking shelter to cross the border.

Since then Moldova hosted about a million of Ukrainian refugees.

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