Moldova could be the victim of Russia’s next aggression

Please also note that Latvia has limited opportunities to provide consular assistance to Latvian citizens in the Transnistrian region. ”

One of the reasons was the decision of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova to extend the state of emergency throughout Moldova for 60 days, “taking into account the existing regional and national security threats”. Already after the decision of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, several explosions took place in Transnistria, damaging the office of the Russian Federal Security Service branch and the retransmission radio tower broadcasting Russian broadcasts. On the other hand, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia is preparing to start hostilities in the region, as preparations are already underway for the evacuation of the families of Russian military officers stationed in Transnistria.

The entry of Transnistria on the left bank of the Dniester River into Moldova is closely linked to the ambitions of USSR leader Stalin to regain all the territory of the Russian Empire lost after the First World War.

Moldova was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1812. Using the chaos in Russia caused by the overthrow of the tsar and the Bolshevik coup, Romania annexed Moldova in March 1918. Russia (USSR) never recognized Moldova’s accession to Romania. Therefore, in preparation for the recovery of Moldova at some point in the future, Moldovan autonomy was established in 1924 on the territory of Ukraine, on the left bank of the Dniester, where a small (approximately 30%) Moldovan minority lived. The purpose of this autonomy was to train Moldovan-speaking specialists to take over power in Moldova when the USSR occupied it. Such a moment came in June 1940. Ten days after the occupation of the Baltic States, USSR tanks entered Moldova. With the unification of Moldova and Transnistria, the Moldovan SSR was established.

With the collapse of the USSR, the Transnistrian leadership declared its desire to secede from Moldova. On September 2, 1990, the Transnistrian local government declared that it was raising the status of its territory to the level of a united republic of the USSR and declared that it was severing ties with Moldova. In November 1990, armed clashes broke out in Transnistria between Moldovan police and local separatists. The clashes escalated into real warfare in early 1991. With the deployment of the 14th USSR Army Headquarters and Weapons Warehouses in Tiraspol since 1984, the Transnistrian separatists were much better armed than the Moldovan police.

Moldovan forces were repressed from Transnistria and a ceasefire was concluded in 1992. Parts of the USSR army became the Russian army, and now the Russian army has officially become a peacekeeper in Transnistria. Parts of the Russian army are still in Transnistria.

No UN member state has recognized the Transnistrian Republic of Moldova. There are three official languages ​​in Transnistria: Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian in Cyrillic (the Latin alphabet is used in Molova).

In 2006, Transnistria held an unrecognized referendum in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in which 97% of voters voted for independence in order to join the Russian Federation in the future. In March 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, the Transnistrian Parliament (Supreme Soviet) called on the Russian State Duma to draft a law allowing Transnistria to join the Russian Federation. From 2016, the Transnistrian leadership began preparing for integration into the Russian Federation by aligning its internal legislation with that of the Russian Federation. As more than half of the approximately 460,000 people in Transnistria – 270,000 – already have Russian citizenship, Russia may at any time transfer its hostilities to Moldova on the pretext of protecting its citizens. In addition, there is reason to believe that one of the aims of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is to conquer a corridor that would connect the already conquered territories of Ukraine with Transnistria. Therefore, there is currently a very high risk that Russia’s aggression will be directed not only against Ukraine, but also that Moldova may be involved in the war.

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