Transnistria is a breakaway region of Moldova where around 1,500 Russian soldiers have been stationed since 1990. Moldova, eager to join the EU, repeatedly warns of Russia’s destabilizing activities. Tensions have increased in recent weeks.
Coup d’etat
Earlier this month, Moldovan President Maia Sandu accused Moscow of planning a coup to overthrow the government and drag Transnistria into war. In his speech to the State Duma on Tuesday, Vladimir Putin rescinded a 2012 decree that partially upheld Moldova’s sovereignty in regulating Transnistria’s future. According to the Kremlin, the decree was withdrawn to “safeguard Russia’s national interests in view of the profound changes taking place in international relations”.
Russian paratroopers
A day earlier, Ukrainian President Zelensky told German newspaper Die Welt that Ukraine would come to Moldova’s aid if Russia opened a new front through Transnistria. According to Zelensky, Russia planned to seize the airport of the Moldovan capital Chisinau with the help of the Transnistrians in order to overthrow the regime of Maia Sandu.
Ukraine has forwarded this information to Moldova. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean confirms that Moscow has several scenarios to destabilize the republic, one of which is the capture of the airport by airborne troops.
“Anti-Russian Hysteria”
Russia’s state-run Tass news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin as saying today. According to Galuzin, the West has ordered the government in Chisinau to cease all interaction with the Transnistrian administration. The RIA Novosti news agency, in turn, considers the possibility of an invasion of Transnistria thanks to Russian missiles as “still small”. The news agency quotes an expert as warning that if “the provocations are not stopped” they could “turn into hostility” in the future.
According to the Russians, the Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities have “launched a wave of anti-Russian hysteria in the media for the second time in a month” targeting not “Moscow, but Transnistria”.
European North Korea
Officially, Transnistria calls itself the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. It is a dwarf state sandwiched between Ukraine and Moldova that is not recognized by any other country. With the exception of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two provinces of Georgia separated from Russia with the help of Russia, which themselves are not recognized by anyone.
Transnistria broke away from what was then Soviet Moldova in 1990. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, pro-Russian separatists fought a bloody war with Moldovan government forces in 1992. Russian-speaking people fled from Moldova to Transnistria, while many Romanian-speaking Moldovans fled to Moldova. Moscow has sent peacekeepers who are still there.
Russification
Since then, Transnistria has made frantic efforts to Russify the region. Although 29 per cent of the population is Russian – compared to 34 per cent Romanian-speaking and 29 per cent Ukrainian – schools teaching in Romanian (with Latin script) are closed. In response, Moldova decided in 2004 to blockade the rebel province. In 2006, President Vadim Krasnoselsky held an unrecognized referendum calling again for independence and union with Russia.
sheriff rules
The mini-state, also called the North Korea of Europe due to its isolated location, has Vadim Krasnoselsky as its president, but is actually governed by the sheriff. And this is the nickname of former KGB agent and business tycoon Victor Gushan who has a monopoly on gas stations, supermarkets, telephone network, casino and international football club FC Sheriff Tiraspol.
The capital Tiraspol is dotted with statues of Lenin dating back to the Soviet era, the only valid currency being the Transnistrian ruble. Almost all transactions must be settled in cash, the country is considered a haven for money laundering and arms trading.
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- Capital: Tiraspol
- Area: 10,782 square kilometers
- Population: 465,000
- Languages: Russian, Romanian, Ukrainian
- Currency: ruble
- President: Vadim Krasnoselsky
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