On August 5, a Moldovan court sentenced the pro-Russian governor of Gagauzia (Gagauz Yeri), Yevgenia Gutsul, to seven years in prison and banned her from holding public office for five years. Gutsul was accused of transporting money from a criminal group in Russia to Moldova between 2019–2022 to finance the Russia-oriented Shor Party, whose leader had fled the country. The court found her guilty of bringing illegal funds from Russia to the Shor Party, where she served as adviser and secretary during the period in question, and of paying pro-Russian demonstrators who took part in protests in front of Moldovan state institutions (Politico, August 2025).
Gutsul was detained in March this year at Chișinău Airport while traveling to Istanbul, later placed under house arrest, and returned to prison when the verdict was issued on August 5. She announced she would appeal the decision. Russia reacted through Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, who said, “Sandu is worse than Saakashvili” (Gagauzinfo, August 2025).
The arrest of the Gagauz governor can be seen as a firm and courageous reaction by Moldova to Russian-backed separatism. However, parliamentary elections critical for the country will take place in September, and Moscow could use its influence in Comrat to create problems for Moldova.
From Telephone Operator to Separatist Leader: Gutsul’s Political Rise
Until the 2023 elections, Yevgenia Gutsul was unknown in both Gagauzia and Moldova. Born in 1986 in the village of Etulia, Vulcănești, she lived there until she was brought to the leadership of Gagauzia. In her 2023 biography submitted to the Moldovan Election Commission, she stated she had a law degree, though the university from which she graduated remains unknown. There is no evidence of work experience in the legal field. Her biography mentions only work as a telephone operator, sales representative, and briefly as an archive worker. In 2018, she became an adviser and secretary to Ilan Shor’s party (Shor) — Shor being a pro-Russian politician wanted in Moldova for fraud and living in Russia. In 2021, she appeared in 63rd place on the party’s candidate list but failed to win a parliamentary seat (Rise Moldova, August 2025).
Gutsul’s sudden rise began in March 2023. Ilan Shor, who fled the country to Israel (later to Russia) in 2019 and was sentenced in 2023 to 15 years in prison for money laundering and fraud, declared Gutsul his candidate for Gagauzia’s governorship (Moldova.org).
A campaign package for Gutsul was prepared with promises far exceeding the governor’s legal powers. Personally announced by Shor, the €500 million program included the construction of an airport, full infrastructure renewal, a 30% increase in public servants’ salaries and pensions within two years, monthly food cards worth 700 lei for pensioners, and the opening of new universities.
To ensure the election of the unknown young woman as governor, Shor put all his weight behind her, declaring in the campaign, “If you elect Gutsul, it’s as if you’re electing me.” Russian pop stars like Philipp Kirkorov, Stas Mikhailov, and Nikolay Baskov took part in the campaign. Leonid Slutsky, leader of Russia’s ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party — present in all of Russia’s occupation activities — called Gutsul “the governor of the future” (Nokta.md, 2023).
Loyal to Russia, Hostile to Moldova
In the second round of the 2023 gubernatorial elections in Gagauzia, Gutsul won. The election was marred by allegations of voter bribery and fraud, and the Moldovan government did not recognize the results. President Maia Sandu stated that Gutsul would not be represented in the Moldovan government (under the Constitution, the Gagauzia governor automatically becomes a member of the government) (Newsmarker, 2024).
In her first statement after the election, Gutsul declared that her party was pro-Russian, that they would build closer relations with Russia, and that they would open a Gagauzia office in Moscow (Reuters, 2023).
A month after the election, the Shor Party was banned in Moldova. Gutsul said she would continue as an independent governor, but from the day she took her oath, her “independence” meant total alignment with Russia and defiance toward Moldova.
According to Gagauzia’s Constitution, the oath must be taken in Gagauz before the Appeals Chamber and the People’s Assembly (parliament) — the final authority confirming election results. No Moldovan officials attended Gutsul’s inauguration, former governor Irina Vlah did not hand over power symbolically, and no one from the Appeals Chamber was present. The election result was announced in Russian. Gutsul did not place her hand on the Moldovan Constitution when swearing in, correcting this “mistake” with the parliament speaker’s help, and finally kissed only the Gagauzia flag, not Moldova’s (Nokta, 2023).
Acting like a Russian regional leader, in early 2024 Gutsul traveled to Moscow. Without consulting Moldova’s leadership, she announced special tariffs for Russian natural gas, special discounted taxes for goods from Russia, and the introduction of Russia’s MIR payment system in Gagauzia (ISW, 2024). She also admitted to complaining about Moldova’s leadership to Putin: “I told Vladimir Vladimirovich about the illegal activities of the Moldovan leadership, who take revenge on us for our civic stance and commitment to national interests” (Evropeyskaya Pravda, 2024).
A month later, Gutsul visited Moscow again — this time to sign an agreement on the use of “Mir” cards in Gagauzia. Upon her return, she declared that if Moldova united with Romania, Gagauzia would declare independence (Eurasiaview, 2024).
At the end of April, Gutsul made a third trip to Moscow to attend a congress organized by political forces hostile to Moldova under Shor’s leadership. She signed on behalf of the so-called “Victory Bloc” and became its executive secretary on the political council (Deutsche Welle, 2024).
Arrest and Charges
Moldova, the European Union (which Moldova seeks to join), and its Western partners repeatedly voiced concerns about Gutsul’s excessive closeness to Moscow and her open complaints about the central government to Russia. In 2024, these concerns became concrete through successive sanctions. In June, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Gutsul (Reuters, 2024), and in October, the EU Council imposed personal sanctions, citing her receipt of illegal financial aid from Shor and Russia to conduct anti-Moldovan politics (European Council, 2024).
The EU Council’s accusations were not unfounded. The Moldovan Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, after Gutsul became executive secretary of the anti-Moldovan bloc in Moscow, charged her with receiving and transporting money from Russia for the banned Shor Party. Investigative materials submitted to the court indicated that before running for governor — while serving as Shor Party secretary between 2019–2022 — she regularly brought money from an organized criminal group in Russia to Moldova. In addition, as the person coordinating the party office’s activities, in autumn 2022 she checked the lists of protest participants in Chișinău and rewarded them. The indictment claimed Gutsul had brought a total of €2.2 million in illicit funds into Moldova. Gutsul claimed the case was ordered by President Sandu (DW, 2024).
When detained in March while heading to Istanbul, she appealed to both Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for protection.
Ankara’s Silence
In a letter to Erdoğan (mistakenly dated as 2024), Gutsul expressed hope that Ankara would not remain indifferent at a critical moment when “the Gagauz people face the threat of losing their autonomy” and wrote, “Today we rely on your intervention to protect the legitimate rights of the Gagauz people” (Telegram, 2024). No response or publicly known reaction came to the letter. The pro-government media barely covered the issue.
Turkey’s silence can be explained by several factors, the most important being its dissatisfaction with extreme pro-Russian sentiment and separatism in Gagauzia. Behind closed doors in Ankara, it is said, “We provide the main financial assistance to Gagauzia, but they act according to Russia’s instructions.” This sentiment has been expressed before. For example, during Erdoğan’s 2018 visit to Gagauzia, two messages stood out: calling on Gagauz to learn both their own language and Moldova’s official language, and stating, “Moldova’s territorial integrity is vital for us” (Anadolu Agency, 2018).
In 2024, the Turkish Foreign Ministry, in a statement marking the 30th anniversary of the Moldovan Parliament’s adoption of the law on Gagauzia’s special legal status, similarly stressed the “special bridge of friendship” between Turkey and Moldova, stating that “Turkey will continue to support the Gagauz Turks and Gagauz Autonomy, which are an inseparable part of Moldova” (TRT Avaz, 2024).
Thus, Turkey does not see Gagauzia as separate from Moldova, does not want to be at the center of such a problem, and is displeased that the long-standing pro-Russian sentiment in the region has turned into separatism under Gutsul. Although Erdoğan maintains warm ties with Russia, his government is not eager to appear as a supporter of regimes directed by Moscow.
As a result, unlike her pro-Russian predecessor Irina Vlah, Gutsul received a much colder reception in Ankara. She failed to get into the same frame with Erdoğan, managing only to meet Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in September 2023 — a meeting that the ministry reported with a single sentence (Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2023). This was hardly the publicity she needed, but even a photo with Fidan served her propaganda claim that “Ankara supports us.” Apart from that visit — possibly organized by the Union of Turkish World Municipalities (TDBB), a NGO with an unwritten function of legitimizing separatists in public opinion and previously involved in similar scandals over Crimea — her other trips to Ankara yielded little (TDBB, 2023).
Pre-Election Arrest: The Domestic Political Impact of the Gutsul Case
Gutsul’s arrest and the charges against her should not be read solely as a Gagauzia issue; they are also part of Moldova’s deep political polarization and the struggle over the country’s statehood. Moldovan politics has long been a stage for a battle between pro-EU forces and populist forces supported by Russia. Since Maia Sandu’s election as president in 2020 and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this struggle has intensified. Moldova’s support for Ukraine, along with the anti-corruption stance and Western integration drive of Sandu’s ruling PAS (Party of Action and Solidarity) (DGAP, 2024), has led Russia to increase its interference in Moldovan politics.
Last year, Sandu and pro-Western forces narrowly won the presidential elections and the EU integration referendum. But to prevent PAS from forming a single-party government as it did in the 2021 elections, Russia is doing everything possible ahead of the September elections. The liberal government faces all pro-Moscow forces: the “Alternative” bloc led by pro-Russian Alexander Stoianoglu (who lost to Sandu in the presidential race last year), the “Platform for Moldova” uniting socialists and communists, Shor’s Moscow-based “Victory” bloc, along with Moscow’s boundless propaganda and likely election meddling. Sandu calls these elections Moldova’s final battle for EU membership in an environment where the pro-Russian opposition is strong (Euronews, 2024).
It seems the Moldovan government views taking decisive steps against Russian-backed separatism — which has become a serious problem for the country’s security and sovereignty — as essential in this struggle. In this context, Gutsul is not the only one arrested. Other “Victory Bloc” representatives announced by Shor in Moscow — Svetlana Popan (6 years), Irina Lozovan (6 years), and Alexander Nesterovci (12 years) — received similar prison sentences for corruption charges. The latter two fled to the Russian-controlled Transnistria region. Another bloc leader, Victoria Furtuna, was added to the EU sanctions list.
Through these actions, Chișinău is sending the message that it will not tolerate separatism in Moldova financed by Russian money. In a country like Moldova, where Russian propaganda has strong influence, this is a bold and risky move. Without doubt, pro-Russian forces, including Shor’s group, will use Gutsul’s arrest as a political tool in next month’s elections. While it would be wrong to claim this arrest will decisively affect the September elections — as Gutsul, despite her separatist fame, is not a major political figure in Moldova — it is easy to predict that fugitive oligarch Shor, for whom Gutsul is an “avatar,” will exploit this arrest to further destabilize the situation in Moldova (Newsmaker.de, August 2025).
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