2024-02-28 16:29:36
Russia has described “protecting” residents of the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria as a “priority”. Russian news agencies on Wednesday quoted the Foreign Ministry in Moscow as saying “protecting the interests of Transnistrian residents, our compatriots, is one of the priorities.” The pro-Russian separatists in the region had previously asked Russia for “protection” from Moldova. Moldova dismissed this as “propaganda”.
The region benefits from “the policy of peace, security and economic integration with the European Union,” which benefits “all citizens,” wrote Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Serebian on Wednesday in the Telegram online service. In a resolution adopted at a special congress in Tiraspol, the separatists asked Moscow to “take measures to defend Transnistria in the face of increasing pressure from Moldova.” Moldova has launched an “economic war” against Transnistria and is blocking vital imports to turn the region into a “ghetto.”
There is “social and economic pressure on Transnistria that directly contradicts European principles and approaches to protecting human rights and free trade,” said the statement, initiated by the president of the internationally unrecognized “republic”, Vadim Krasnosselski . According to the resolution, more than 220,000 Russian citizens live in Transnistria. Russian soldiers are also stationed there. For EU accession candidate Moldova, which lies between Ukraine and Romania, this news is likely to fuel fears of Russian aggression on its territory – especially because Russia has already stationed its own soldiers in Transnistria for decades.
The region has seceded from Moldova since the 1990s. After the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Moldovan politicians have repeatedly expressed great concern. Observers also accused Russia of deliberately destabilizing the situation in the region with provocations.
In their appeal to Moscow, those in power in Transnistria now also referred to Russian citizens who lived in the separatist region. This will also worry many people. According to Russian military doctrine, the army is also permitted to deploy outside its own territory if it is supposedly intended to protect Russian citizens. At the moment, the Kremlin has not recognized Transnistria as its own state.
The spokesman for the pro-European Moldovan government, Daniel Voda, emphasized that the authorities in Chisinau had “calmly noted” the “demands and decisions of the so-called special congress” of the breakaway region. Both the separatist leaders in Tiraspol and the Kremlin are obviously relying on “scaremongering” and “media hysteria”, with these smokescreens only serving to give the Tiraspol Congress some headlines, according to the government spokesman.
In fact, the separatists’ demands were ultimately far more lenient than feared – there had been speculation in the Moldovan media for days that the Transnistrian pseudo-MPs could demand annexation to Russia at their meeting today.
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