Simon Lewis

CHISINAU, Moldova (Reuters) – Washington’s top diplomat Antony Blinken on Sunday praised Moldova’s leaders for taking in refugees from Ukraine as he visited the country on a tour through eastern Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

In a meeting between Natalia Gavrilita and Blinken, the Prime Minister stated that more than 223,000 people crossed into Moldova from Ukraine after the war started on February 24th. 120,000 had also remained in Moldova.

“For a small country like Moldova, this is a very large number” and Moldova will need assistance to deal with the influx, she said.

Blinken, the Biden’s administration’s secretary of state, said he admired Moldova’s generosity and hospitality in taking in those fleeing the conflict, which the U.N. refugee agency said could have caused 1.5 million people to flee Ukraine by Sunday.

The visit came after Blinken visited NATO-member Poland on Saturday as the alliance bolsters its eastern flank in response to Russia’s assault. The Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Baltic states will also be visited by Blinken.

Moldova is a former Soviet Republic, like Ukraine. However, it applied for membership to the European Union on Thursday. The move was likely to rile Moscow, which has an estimated 1,500 troops based in the breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova’s east.

Blinken said Moldova provided a “powerful and positive story” of an emerging democracy “at a moment when over some years democracies have been moving backward not forward.

Blinken also met with Moldovan President Maia Sandu. She is a former World Bank economist and came to power in 2019. In July, she won a bigger mandate promising stronger ties with West.