Irina Vlah is a Moldovan Gagauzian politician, who acted as Head of the autonomous region of Gagauzia from 2015 to 2023. Previously, she performed as a member of the Moldovan Parliament from 2005 to 2015. She is a member of the pro-Russian Party of Socialists.
In 20215, Moscow celebrated the victory of a pro-Russian Irina Vlah in the regional leader’s poll in Moldova’s autonomous territory of Gagauzia. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed the election of Irina Vlah as Gagauzia’s bashkan, or governor indicated that most Gagauzia residents support “further developing their traditionally close ties with the Russian Federation.”
Vlah briefed reporters in the regional capital, Comrat, that her preferences will include “strengthening regional ties with [regions] of the Russian Federation, constructive position with Moldova’s central government, and the economic revival of Gagauzia.”
In July 2024, Irina Vlah, a pro-Moscow ex-governor of Moldova’s autonomous Gagauz region declared her candidacy in Moldova’s forthcoming presidential election against pro-European incumbent Maia Sandu. Vlah, 50, revealed in a statement in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, during which she denounced what she said were closer ties between Moldova and NATO and expanded defence spending while calling for the country’s neutral position to be maintained and beefed up.
Vlah also urged her followers to vote “No” in a referendum on Moldova’s European integration that will take place simultaneously with the presidential polls on October 20, when Sandu is pursuing a second mandate.
Vlah was governor of Gagauzia from 2015 until 2023 when she was superseded by Evghenia Gutul, a close associate of Ilan Shor, a Russian-backed fugitive oligarch involved in a $1 billion bank fraud and other illicit methods who has organized months of anti-Sandu demonstrations in Chisinau. Gagauzia’s 140,000 inhabitants, mainly ethnic Turks who stick to Orthodox Christianity, have had uneasy connections with the central authorities since Moldova declared freedom from the Soviet Union in 1991.
