LONDON — Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu said in a briefing with journalists on Thursday that the country is facing a “very dangerous new moment” following a series of explosions at the State Security Ministry building in Transnistria on Monday. Since then, all of the country’s institutions have been on high alert, Popescu added.
Two blasts damaged Soviet-era radio masts in the village of Maiac on Tuesday. Before the attacks, a senior Kremlin commander said Russian forces were planning to “enter” southern Ukraine in order to reach Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, according to state Russian media.
Where is Transnistria located?
Transnistria is a 248-mile long narrow strip of land in Moldova that borders Ukraine and has a population of 470,000. The region is divided more or less equally between Ukrainians, Russians and Moldovans, a former Moldovan ambassador to the US told L’Illustré, a French newspaper. However, Russians occupy the “highest positions in the administration and make up the military and economic elite,” the ambassador said. Transnistria has its own capital, uses its own currency and Russian is its official language. Cobasna, a village in the region, is home to a former Soviet, now Russian, ammunition depot that is the largest in Eastern Europe. According to the Moldovan ambassador to the United Nations, the depot contains more than 20,000 tons of Russian ammunition.
But how is the region’s relationship with Russia?
Although internationally recognized as part of Moldova, Transnistria has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990. Russian forces have been stationed there since 1992, after a ceasefire was signed between Moldova and Transnistria after a brief border war that left up to 700 dead.
The Kremlin props up Transnistria’s economy by supplying gas to local industries free of charge and paying elderly people the “Putin pension,” a total of $8 a month. In return, Russia keeps soldiers stationed there permanently, which the Kremlin calls “peacekeeping.” Russian state media, which has widespread coverage in the region, has also played an important role in boosting pro-Russian sentiment.
The story goes on
In Moldova, as in other countries, Russia has used its energy supplies to exploit dependencies and put pressure on the country to pursue policies pro-Kremlin, said Dorina Baltag, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance. to Yahoo News. “Last year, in October 2021, the Moldovan government was forced to declare a state of emergency after a gas contract with Russian gas company Gazprom expired this year and a new contract from Gazprom included a triple price increase, which the Moldovan government could not pay ‘ Baltag said. “The contract with Russia, a good deal that the Moldovan government was able to achieve, reveals Moldova’s greatest weakness. So for Moldova, energy security is most likely the main component of national security.”
What has happened in Transnistria since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24?
A Transnistrian soldier walks past a line of cars waiting to leave the self-proclaimed Republic of Transnistria at the Varnita border crossing with Moldova April 28. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images)
According to L’Illustré, foreign journalists have been banned from the territory since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Six weeks into the Russian war, authorities in the region reported an attack on a military unit just hours after two radio towers were blown up. Moldova President Maia Sandu blamed the attacks on separatist groups and said her government will “resist attempts to implicate Moldova in actions that could threaten peace in the country”. No casualties were reported, but separatist authorities raised the terrorist threat level in the region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to destabilize Moldova and sarcastically compared the reasons for the attacks to what the Kremlin gave as the reason for the invasion of Ukraine. “There, in Moldova, the rights of Russian-speaking people are allegedly being violated,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the nation last Friday. “Although, to be honest, the territory where Russia should care about the rights of Russian speakers is Russia itself: where there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of choice. Where there is simply no right to object. Where poverty thrives and where human lives are worthless.”
Will the war soon spread to Moldova?
Baltag said that Moldova’s vulnerability was Transnistria and that the situation depended on the outcome of the war in Ukraine. “The war in Ukraine brings with it two of the biggest challenges Moldova is confronted with: dependence on Russian gas and the Russian Federation-backed breakaway region of Transnistria,” she said.
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What happened in Ukraine last week? Check out this Yahoo Immersive explainer to find out.
