Giselle and Dalibor are joined by Iulia and guest Oana Serafim, former Director of Moldovan Service for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, live from Bucharest, Romania. Oana brings her personal connection to Moldova and nearly thirty years of expertise in Eastern European media to The Eastern Front Podcast. While Moldova is not a part of the European Union nor NATO, and historically has partly remained within the Russian sphere of influence, Moldova applied for European Union Membership in March 2022 (after Russia's invasion of Ukraine). Moldovan struggles with a frozen conflict in Transnistria, heavy Russian propaganda, and political forces debating between the East and West should remind the West that "history is never [in the] past," as Oana notes, and Eastern European politics must be understood with nuance. Oana unpacks how the perceived East/West divide is growing, how this impacts developing countries like Moldova, and how countries within Russia's backyard like Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia must be embraced by the West.