The country should not become a venue for the conflict between Western Europe and Moscow, Igor Dodon has said The EU wants to use Moldova as “cannon fodder” in a possible conflict with Russia, the nation’s former president, Igor Dodon, has warned.Countries across the EU have boosted military spending since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, agreeing to allocate €800 billion ($937 billion) by 2030 to the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative. Some of the bloc’s politicians have also increasingly spoken of the “Russian threat,” despite Moscow repeatedly calling such claims “nonsense” and insisting that it harbors no aggressive plans against the EU."What do we have today? It is clear that [Western] Europe is preparing for war with Russia,” Dodon, who led Moldova between 2016 and 2020, and is now in opposition to the pro-Western government of President Maia Sandu, told RIA-Novosti on Sunday."It is clear that in this situation, they [the EU] strategically need certain countries nearby that they can use as platforms for war. They want to use Moldova as cannon fodder, as yet another country to use against Russia,” he said, apparently referring to Ukraine. Moldova, which is a former Soviet republic of about 2.5 million people sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, “absolutely does not need” such a scenario to unfold, the former president insisted.Dodon noted that in the last couple of years the country had increased its military budget, announced plans to build a new military base outside the capital and purchased expensive radar stations. “All this is being done for a reason,” he said.In her address to the European Parliament earlier this month, Sandu claimed that becoming an EU member “is a matter of survival” for Moldova, as Russia has allegedly “unleashed its full arsenal of hybrid attacks.”The country was granted EU candidate status in 2022 alongside Ukraine. Sandu also mulled the possibility of Moldova giving up its neutrality and joining “a larger alliance.” However, she did not mention NATO specifically. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned in July that NATO has been molding Moldova into a military “battering ram” against Russia. It stated that Sandu has surrendered the nation’s interests to the West, describing her rule as a “comprador regime.”