Moldova's premier resigns as Zelenskyy tours Europe

What did a week of Ukrainian diplomacy look like from the neighbouring state that felt the war's side effects? On 10 February 2023, Moldovan prime minister Natalia Gavrilița resigned, citing an economic crisis and the collateral effects of the war in neighbouring Ukraine.

The resignation came two days after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his second trip outside Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion. On 8 February 2023 he visited the United Kingdom, where he met King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and addressed Parliament at Westminster Hall. His first trip abroad had been to the United States in December 2022.

A trip that continued

The British stop was not the end of the journey. As reported on 8 February 2023, Zelenskyy was to go on to France, where he would meet President Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Two sides of the same war

The two developments show how the war's effects were felt differently across the region. Ukraine's president was received at the highest levels in London and then in France, in the company of the leaders of two other major European states. In Moldova, the same war was named as one of the pressures that brought down a prime minister, alongside an economic crisis.

Gavrilița's departure was tied explicitly to those conditions: economic strain and the spillover of a conflict next door. The reports of her resignation attribute it to the economic crisis and the war's collateral effects, and they point to no single event as the trigger.

For readers trying to place 10 February 2023, the picture is of a Europe in which the war shaped politics well beyond Ukraine's borders. Kyiv's leader was building ties abroad in person, while a neighbouring government was dealing with the economic consequences at home.