In the article below, I analyse the role of the Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Ilascu and others v. Moldova and Russia. This judgment, being pronounced by an international tribunal, benefits from the authority and power of the res judicata. However, this argument was "strategically ignored" by the Moldovan political establishment. I tried to find the answer to the question: Why has Moldovan diplomacy never used this strong argument, provided by the ECHR? The conclusion I reached is that the political leaders in these three decades, even if they declaratively demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, de facto wanted the presence of the 14th Army on its territory. The de facto Russian troops remained a guarantee of keeping in the Russian orbit of the Republic of Moldova, a kind of neo-MSSR controlled by the Kremlin, whose patrimony was left to devour the post-Soviet kleptocratic elites. In the 30 years, according to opinion polls, the issue of illegal Russian military presence in Moldova oscillates between the eighth and tenth percent in the hierarchy of the most pressing problems facing Moldovan society. However, it remains the number one problem of this state, without the solution of which will not be any substantial change in foreign policy is possible, but neither in domestic policy. For three decades of independence, the issue of the occupied territories on the left bank of the Dniester and Bender (Tighina), together with indirect instruments of influence, such as the media, the Russian orthodox church, imperial minorities, economic and energy blackmail, remains one of the most important instruments of Kremlin's control over the Republic of Moldova.