US Will Spend $500,000 to Produce Russian TV Programs in Moldova

With Russia’s recent aggression towards its neighbor Ukraine, one might think the US would be investing in methods of containment to curb the influence of Russia in the region.

The Biden Administration is doing the opposite. The US Department of State’s Mission to Moldova is awarding a grant for $500,000 to create “Russian-language Television Series Pilots” in Moldova to promote the Russian language in the country.

According to a grant description from the State Department, grantees should create “entertainment and fiction programs on Moldovan television.” It also stipulates that “the grant recipient must solicit applications from emerging or established Moldovan and/or regional filmmakers, and creative studios.” The grantee also has the option to, “identify, obtain rights to, and air on Moldovan TV Russian-language content from independent producers in the region.”

So, half a million dollars is being spent to create and translate TV programs in Russian in Moldova.

Now, besides the fact that your tax dollars will be paying for Moldovan TV programming, there is an even bigger problem: the official language of Moldova isn’t Russian, it’s Romanian!

According to the World Atlas, only 11.25% of Moldovans speak Russian as their native language, while over 75% speak Romanian as their native language. While some Moldovans can speak and understand Russian, it is still considered a minority language, and most speakers are from older generations that still remember it from the Soviet Union. Younger speakers are now taught English as their second language. 

With all the problems the US currently faces, should the government seek to address the lack of Russian TV programming in Moldova?

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