Author’s Note: Recent personal news has kinda thrown my planned publishing schedule out the window. Once things calm down a bit I’ll circle back with a Weekly Roundup to catch us up on all the goings on. In the meantime, I wanted to focus on a story that’s been simmering for a while and boiled over this past week - Vladimir Voronin’s strained relations with the rest of the Patriot Bloc. We’ll look at these events, and put them into the context of a long political career that is about to come to an end.
Voronin: the “Kuliok” Contained €860,000
… and apparently it was supposed to contain €1 million euros, but someone stole €140,000.
Communist Party leader Vladimir Voronin dropped this bomb on TV8 last Wednesday. We’ll get to exactly what he said, and what it means for the coming elections in a moment. But for those asking “what is a Kuliok?!” let’s back up quickly for some context.
The “Kuliok” or Black Bag Case
The word kuliok in Russian is slang for a simple, cheap even shabby type of bag. Something you might get at the market to carry groceries in. Here it refers to a scandal, and later criminal case from 2019.
In the last days of Plahotniuc’s rule over Moldova a video emerged purporting to show the oligarch passing then President Igor Dodon a black plastic bag. In the video, Dodon is heard saying that the money (in the bag) would be used to pay the salaries of the Socialist Party. The video was allegedly recorded, and then leaked by Plahotniuc in June 2019 at the hight of the political crisis that soon after resulted in Plahotniuc’s flight from the country.
The video instantly caused a scandal as it was seen as evidence of corrupt dealings between Dodon and Plahotniuc. After the fall and flight of Plahotniuc, Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo chose not to pursue the case against Dodon very seriously. Supposedly1 the reason for this was uncertainty about what was in the bag, and the impossibility of getting Plahotniuc to testify.
After PAS came to power and ousted Stoianoglo, prosecutors reopened the case. It has languished in court ever since with Dodon’s lawyers pursuing effective delaying tactics and basically arguing that a) the video is fake2 and b) no one knows what was in the bag anyway. Prosecutors allege that the bag contained some hundreds of thousands of euros - but never alleged a concrete number.
As of February 2025 the prosecution rested its case having called 15 witnesses and spent 2 years in court. The defense began their case announcing the intention to call over 190 witnesses3. It remains stuck in court moving very slowly.
Voronin’s Explosive Interview
In his interview on TV8, veteran journalist Anatolie Golea asked Voronin “what was in the black bag from Plahotniuc?” This is not the first time that Voronin was asked about the case involving his former protégé and current coalition bloc partner. It was the first time that he answered “€860,000 euros.”
An audibly surprised Golea follows up confirming that Voronin is speaking about an exact sum. He confirmed that he knew the amount precisely, and stated that it was because Plahotniuc had complained later saying that he knew for sure that he put €1 million euros in the bag, and that he didn’t know where the missing €140,000 went. He told this all like a funny joke, how Plahotniuc was frustrated by the situation and how he was very angry about it with his inner circle.
Golea followed up by asking if this number isn’t too high - noting that prosecutors had previously cited numbers around €600,000 euros. Voronin answered saying “what do you want from me? this is what Plahotniuc told me directly.”
Asked if he would be willing to testify to a court he shrugged and said that he already had given testimony to Anti-Corruption Prosecutors.
Reactions and Convoluted Denials
Voronin’s rather glib on-air confirmation of the most contentious evidence in Igor Dodon’s ongoing trial - in which he is charged not only with corruption and illicit financing but with treason - was a political bombshell. It was only last week that we wrote about how Voronin and his Communist party had chosen to join the “Patriotic Bloc of Socialists, Communists, Heart and Future of Moldova” for the September elections. His on-air knifing of Igor Dodon, the effective leader4 of this bloc, sent shockwaves across Moldovan commentary and media.
Social media commentary had quite a lot of fun with the topic, but also noted a rather important timeline issue. The kuliok case did not really come to prominence until after Plaha had fled the country. Was Voronin still in touch with the fugitive oligarch after he left?
With lots of open questions and more than a few online jokes, damage control began. Igor Dodon came out with a series of confusing statements saying:
"Yesterday, there was a provocation from the authorities on a pro-government TV channel in order to create discord within the bloc. Our position is as follows: we will discuss and resolve this within the bloc. Literally today, we will have a meeting on current issues, where we will discuss this topic as well. Message to citizens: we assure you that the bloc will survive and will continue to act in the interests of the citizens of Moldova,"
Asked by a journalist how the PAS Party could have orchestrated this “provocation” Dodon responded saying:
"They played on some emotions of Mr. Voronin, perhaps on his advanced age. I do not want to give any assessments, we [the bloc] will discuss this and move forward together,"
He later speculated that maybe Voronin was "confused by the devil."
Asked to comment on Voronin’s statement that he had given evidence to Anti-Corruption Prosecutors, the agency neither confirmed nor denied the information.
Voronin tries to put the toothpaste back into the tube…
The day after the fateful interview, the Communist Party put out a statement from Vladimir Voronin that also blamed PAS for his statements. Calling TV8 and Anatolie Golea “pro government press” he stated that there were a series of well planned provocations but that he outsmarted the journalist writing:
“he didn't succeed. He couldn't get a single bad word about our partners in Bloc out of me.”
The statement goes on to call his statements about the kuliok and Dodon “sarcasm” explaining:
"And how could I know whether there was money in the "bag", and most importantly, how much. To emphasize the absurdity of Goli's question, I allowed myself to joke about some of the money being stolen. Which, as you understand, I also could not know. And it is completely impossible to imagine that Plahotniuc himself was frank with me about this topic. Especially since the investigation into the "bag" case began when Plahotniuc was no longer in Moldova."
So that clears things up.
A spokesperson for PAS made a statement to TV8 saying:
"The "Kuliok" bloc is having a fight - how much money did Dodon receive as a bribe from Plahotniuc - 860 thousand euros or 1 million euros. This is how they want to govern the country, dividing the money from the masters' kulioks among themselves."
Voronin’s Last Rodeo
Anyone who watches the video and knows Russian can clearly see that the whole “I was being sarcastic” / “PAS made me do it” explanations are ludicrous. So why did he knife his coalition partner in the back on TV? Did the 84 year old Voronin have a senior moment as Dodon suggested? Or was he “confused by the devil?”
There’s one other possible explanation - retribution and / or a warning. The week before this interview, the Patriotic Bloc registered their party list with the Central Election Commission (CEC). Vladimir Voronin placed 49th on that list. Fellow bloc leaders were rather higher in priority - Igor Dodon #1, Irina Vlah #3, Vasile Tarlev #4.
Voronin has fallen far in prominence - in the last parliamentary elections, he was #1 on the list of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists, followed by Igor Dodon at #2.
This isn’t merely a matter of prestige, in Moldova’s proportional representation system the Patriotic Bloc would need to get 49% of votes to see Voronin enter parliament at all. Based on past performance, polls and simple logic this simply is not even within the realm of possibility.
Vladimir Voronin will not be a member of the next parliament.
Born less than 1 year after the Soviet Union invaded and annexed present day Moldova, taking it away from Romania, Voronin’s life has been defined by politics. After rising through the ranks of Communist Party politics within the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, he took a prominent role in post-independence Moldova. He founded the current Party of Communists in 1994 and entered parliament in 1998. He’s been there ever since, with the exception of 2001 - 2009 when he was President. In that role, he became the first democratically elected communist head of state since the fall of the USSR.
None of this time has been without controversy. Voronin’s presidency ended after the violent events of 2009. We dove into this in depth in a 3 part podcast series from last year (part 1, part 2, part 3). He has been accused (credibly) of serious crimes, from rigging elections to violent suppression of protests. He brought Plahotniuc up in politics and he and his party incubated a whole generation of pro-Russian leaders, from Igor Dodon to Irina Vlah to Vasile Tarlev to Ion Ceban. In addition to his alleged crimes, his impact on Moldovan politics has been seismic, and deeply destructive to Moldova’s attempts to break free of the Kremlin’s orbit.
With that career behind him Voronin will soon be out of elected office for the first time since 1998. From the beginning of this election season he has been sending clear signals that he is unhappy with what’s going on. When the Patriotic Bloc was first announced he stated that “I'm not as optimistic as my colleagues.” Later he was roundly mocked for showing up to a major press conference disheveled and wearing flip-flops.
Perhaps he is struggling with coming to terms with the end of his political career? Perhaps he doesn’t even want to run in these elections at all.5 Could this be why he went after Dodon on TV? maybe a last minute burst of conscience? or revenge for humiliating him in the part list? or maybe a warning that he knows where *lots* of skeletons are buried?
For now we just don’t know. But this latest episode in the “Voronin is all out of fucks to give” election subplot is a major escalation over the flip-flops incident. We’ll track how the unity of the Patriotic Bloc handles this challenge over the coming weeks.
Recall, Dodon’s Socialists nominated Stoianoglo as their presidential candidate last year. At the time we looked at his record as a prosecutor, specifically allegations (and ongoing court cases) focused on his one real action in that time - letting Veaceslav Platon out of prison. An action that allegedly resulted in major financial gains for Mr. Stoianoglo.
At one point the court granted the defense 1 year so that an expert on videos could return an opinion on whether or not it was faked. One year.
In addition to the camera, there were 3 people in this room.
There are more than a few rumors that none of these 4 party leaders really want to be running together. Most went to Moscow for consultations shortly before announcing the formation of the bloc and there’s a distinct sense of players who are not happy with the calls the coach is making. Voronin’s increasingly erratic behavior is just one example here.
See footnote 4 :)
Excellent article, just what I needed!
Pro Russia groups fighting like rats in a sack.
The limits of Dodon's pro-European position seem to be accepting bribes in Euros.
So a rich donor paid the salaries of a political party? How is that different from what happens everywhere? All parties get money from donations and some of it goes to pay the salaries of party workers.