February 22, 2023 4:49 p.m
Moscow annuls the treaty on the future of Transnistria, a small Moscow-backed separatist Moldovan strip bordering Ukraine and home to 1,500 Russian soldiers. The reasons for the crisis and the scenarios
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Wladimir Putin he has recanted a decree of May 2012 who supported Moldova’s sovereignty and renewed Russian aims towards the country borders with Ukraine. The document was prepared as part of the “Measures for the implementation of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation” with a special focus on Transnistria, pro-Russian separatist region supported by Moscow, which stationed Russian troops right next to the “hot” border. The real question is: What’s happening now? How to interpret the Kremlin’s move? And again, what is this rescinded decree?
decree repealed After again accused the West of instigating the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian President sharply deviates from the goals of cooperation with the EU signed eleven years ago to create a “single economic and human space from the Atlantic to the Pacific” and the development of “relationships with NATO”. One of the most urgent points is precisely the “solution of the Transnistria problem on the basis of respect for Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. All suddenly cancelled. So the frozen conflict between Moldova and Transnistria, like others in the ex-Soviet territories on the Black Sea (and since 2014 like Donbass), threatens to explode another powder keg.
What does Russia want The international media, led by the Guardian, has underscored Russia’s strong restart of a hybrid campaign in relation to Moldova, a strategic country for the fate of the ongoing war. Some also report planning a Moscow-backed coup to install a “friendly” regime in tiny neighboring nation Ukraine. An indication of this thesis would be the resignation of the pro-European Moldovan government in early February, which could not withstand the weight of the socio-economic (very deep) and political crisis that deepened in the country after February 24, 2022. Internal and external pressures delivered the coup de grace to Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, who was replaced by Dorin Recean. However, this election upholds the pro-EU (and anti-Russian) line of Maia Sandu’s presidency and is therefore “uncomfortable” for the Kremlin. On February 13, the Moldovan President himself publicly denounced the existence of a Russian plan to undermine the government from within using covert foreign agents.
The historical reasons The territorial integrity of Moldova, a formally neutral post-Soviet country and candidate for EU membership, has been severely tested since 1990 by the Republic of Transnistria, a de facto independent Moscow-backed territory. It is not for nothing that the clashes that led to this state of affairs thirty years ago are referred to as the “Transnistrian War”. This small strip, drawn by the course of the Dniester River and by the borders of Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast, was part of the Republic of Ukraine after World War I, only to become an autonomous political entity in 1924 called the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with capital Tiraspol, but still in communist Ukraine. Moldova, then called Bessarabia, was instead incorporated into what is now Romania. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed by the USSR and Nazi Germany determined the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and the establishment of the Moldavian SSR in 1940. Transnistria was incorporated into the newly born socialist republic. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova declared its independence and “voided” the pact of half a century earlier.
Why Moldova The causes of the crisis in Moldova, with only 2.5 million inhabitants and the lowest GDP per capita in Europe, are largely linked to Russian measures. Indeed, from an energy perspective, the country is completely dependent on Russian supplies, which have been capped by the Kremlin. The inflation rate has risen to 30% and fuel bills have almost reached the equivalent of a minimum monthly pension. Moldova has also long been the target of cyberattacks and the pro-Russian media’s push for disinformation. This has been exacerbated by the arrival of over 700,000 Ukrainian refugees since the war began. Russia then also blocked imports of Moldovan wine, the main product of the country’s agri-food industry.
Strategic Transnistria About 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed in breakaway Transnistria, just a stone’s throw from Ukraine. The strategic value of this independent republic is not only geographical. According to Moscow’s calculations, the freezing of conflicts in the area should serve to create a buffer to NATO, just like with Ukraine before the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the country in 2022. With the Minsk agreements, for example, the Kremlin aimed at federalization of Ukraine, which relies on the breakaway regions as leverage to maneuver Kiev’s security and foreign policy. If, on the one hand, Transnistria bears the shadow of Russia, on the other hand, there is a Moldova embraced by the US and Britain: the former are building one of the largest American embassies in Chisinau, while London emphasizes the need for the military to equip the country to NATO standards to protect it from the threat to protect against a Russian invasion. Meanwhile, however, Transnistria presents itself as a veritable Moscow-loyal fortress, resisting possible ultra-nationalist infiltrations from Ukraine and seeing ammunition depots like the large Kolbasna camp scattered throughout the territory. The latent conflict (?) between Chisinau and Tiraspol is a violin string ready to vibrate. Not to mention that, according to independent surveys, more than 42% of Transnistrian residents identify themselves as “ethnic Russians”, the people of the independent republic.
What’s happening now? Precisely because of its strategic importance, Moldova represents for many the “next Ukraine” to escalate the conflict. The same US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, expressed his concern to the Moldovan President at the Munich conference about a possible conspiracy aimed at establishing a pro-Moscow regime in Moldova. Though a full-blown “Ukraine-style” invasion seems unlikely, Moldova is at the center of the Russian chessboard. The presence of pro-Russian oligarchs with huge capitals and a sizeable ethnic Russian minority are factors in Moscow’s favour. Bringing Moldova back into Russia’s sphere of influence would also destroy military cooperation with neighboring Romania, a NATO-EU bulwark in the region. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently described Moldova as the West’s new “anti-Russian project”. The extent of the social unrest on the Ukrainian flank, which could be used with a dangerous “pincer effect”, should not be overlooked all the more. For the time being, the country remains crushed under pressure from the West and Russia. Just like Ukraine before the outbreak of war.
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