Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
KOMRAT, Moldova—Russian pop music was playing at the Augusto Café in the Gagauzia region of Moldova, where four local schoolteachers were meeting up for coffee. They chatted about the latest headlines gripping the country: skyrocketing inflation; recent bomb threats to public buildings, and Russian attacks on the Ukrainian city of Odesa, which is just over a three-hour drive from the coffee shop.
But when they got to the biggest news story that’s come out of Moldova in recent weeks—that the country could be Russia’s next target after Ukraine—the teachers seemed more excited than terrified about the prospect.
“That would be great,” one of the teachers, 36-year-old Anzhela, told The Daily Beast. “Maybe then Russian gas will be cheaper for us.”