Europe has its own Venezuela now: Its poorest or second poorest nation, depending on how you count, has two governments. The main difference: Russia and the West prefer the same one, because the alternative is worse — blatant state capture by an oligarch who is only in this for himself.

In February, Moldova, a country of 3.5 million squeezed between Ukraine and Romania, held an inconclusive parliamentary election. Three parties — the pro-Russian Socialist Party, the pro-European Union ACUM and the Democratic Party, led by oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc — each got more than 20 percent of the vote. Coalition talks promised to be difficult: Neither of the other two political forces wanted to work with Plahotniuc. While the coalition negotiations dragged on, the Democratic Party’s Pavel Filip continued running the government, just as he had before the election.

On June 8, former World Bank executive Maia Sandu, a co-leader of ACUM, announced the formation of a coalition with the Socialists. But Moldova’s Constitutional Court, packed with Plahotniuc loyalists, immediately ruled that Sandu’s coalition was unconstitutional because it was formed more than 90 days after the election. On June 9, it also deposed Moldova’s president, Socialist Igor Dodon, and handed over his powers to Filip, who promptly called a new election for September.

Both Moldovan governments are refusing to leave (and so is Dodon, who was popularly elected), and both are issuing orders — almost like in Venezuela, where Russian-backed President Nicolas Maduro and his rival Juan Guaido, recognized by the U.S. and a number of other Western nations, are locked in a stand-off. In Moldova, though, Russian and Western interests appear to overlap — perhaps for the first time since Russia occupied Crimea in 2014.

Russia recognized Sandu’s government on June 10. Though most of the important ministerial posts in it went to ACUM politicians, the Socialists’ presence makes it acceptable for the Kremlin. Official Moscow has no illusions about regaining its full Soviet-era influence in Moldova, a country where Romania has distributed about a million of its passports, allowing Moldovans to integrate into the EU before their country has.

Russia, however, has an interest in maintaining a healthy relationship with the post-Soviet country while keeping control over Moldova’s unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria, a Russian-speaking enclave where 1,500 Russian troops are stationed in the kind of buffer arrangement the Kremlin likes to maintain near Russian borders.