President Maia Sandu delivered a speech before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the occasion of Moldova assuming the Presidency of the Committee of Ministers. She warned about the most serious threats facing Europe today: Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine and the hybrid war targeting European democracies.

“The Council of Europe was born out of the failure of European democracies to protect themselves in time,” President Sandu stressed, recalling that peace without democratic resilience is temporary. “The Council of Europe was never meant to be a comfort zone. It was meant to be a line of defence.”

Referring to the war in Ukraine, she firmly condemned Russia’s aggression and the deliberate use of civilian suffering as a weapon of war. “Millions of Ukrainians live in darkness and cold — not because of the weather, but because the Kremlin has turned the freezing of civilians into a weapon,” she stated.

For Moldova, this war is not distant. “We know that we owe our peace to Ukraine’s resistance,” the President emphasized.

Maia Sandu also drew attention to a second, less visible but equally dangerous war: the hybrid war against democracies. “This war is waged inside our societies — a hybrid war, an information war, a war meant to divide people and control our hearts and minds,” she said, noting that one war destroys cities while the other destroys trust.

She reiterated that Moldova is on the frontline of these threats. “For two consecutive years, our country has faced massive electoral interference,” she noted, referring to the artificially induced energy crisis, political corruption, cyberattacks, and online disinformation campaigns.

Drawing on Moldova’s experience, the President warned that one of the greatest threats to democracies is disinformation amplified by technology, social networks, opaque algorithms, and the potential misuse of artificial intelligence. “Algorithms increasingly determine what people read, watch, and believe, while their logic remains largely opaque,” she said, stressing that such manipulation enables rapid, large-scale, and hard‑to‑detect attacks on democratic societies.

She expressed particular concern about the impact on young people, given that technology can directly affect their freedom of thought. “If we do not act, those who control the technologies will end up controlling how people think,” she warned, adding that “if we want democracies capable of resisting manipulation, we must protect the freedom of young minds.”

The President called for urgent and coordinated action to defend democracies: “Our democracies are under direct attack,” she cautioned, noting that long‑term strategies alone are insufficient when elections are manipulated in real time. She advocated for a clear legal instrument of the Council of Europe to counter information manipulation and foreign interference.

“We must act with the same speed as the threat,” President Sandu concluded, underscoring that “the Council of Europe was created for moments like this — not when democracy is comfortable, but when it is challenged.” Moldova will exercise its Presidency of the Committee of Ministers in line with this responsibility.