Geopolitics of Resistance: War and Sexuality in Pro-Russian Contestation of EU Accession in Moldova and Georgia

This article examines how pro-Russian political and civil society actors in Moldova and Georgia employ narratives around the war in Ukraine and LGBTQ rights to contest the European Union’s enlargement policy. Drawing on discourse analysis of media statements, parliamentary debates, and campaign materials (2022–2025), the study shows how these actors frame EU accession as a threat to national sovereignty, traditional values, and peace. The war in Ukraine is instrumentalized to portray the EU as a destabilizing geopolitical force, allegedly dragging candidate countries into confrontation with Russia. Simultaneously, LGBTQ rights are deployed as a symbolic shorthand for unwanted Western liberalism, linking EU membership to moral decay and cultural alienation. These discursive strategies are embedded in transnational networks that facilitate the circulation of frames, especially through ties with Russian state media, Orthodox Church structures, and far-right organizations in other Eastern Partnership countries. The article conceptualizes such rhetoric as a form of “strategic hybrid contestation,” combining security and identity arguments to undermine public and elite support for EU integration. It also examines emerging counter-contestations, where pro-European actors oppose these narratives by reframing enlargement as both a security guarantee and a platform for modernizing reforms. By focusing on Moldova and Georgia—two candidate countries at the intersection of EU, Russian, and regional influences—this contribution deepens understanding of how enlargement debates are shaped by the interplay of war, values politics, and transnational contestation networks in the Eastern neighbourhood.