Pro-Russian rebels in a separatist strip of Moldova have called on President Vladimir Putin to protect their region from what they say are threats from the Moldovan government.
Transnistria, which illegally seceded from Moldova when the Soviet Union collapsed, has remained firmly within the Kremlin’s orbit, while Moldova, which borders Ukraine, aspires to join the European Union.
At a special congress on Wednesday, Transnistria politicians called on Moscow to protect it from “growing pressure from Moldova,” and the Kremlin later said protecting its “compatriots” was a priority, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported. .
While the congress initially raised fears that Moscow could press ahead with its long-standing plan to destabilize Moldova’s increasingly pro-Western government, Moldova dismissed it as “propaganda.”
Here’s what you need to know.
What happened in Transnistria?
Meetings of the Transnistrian Congress of Deputies, a Soviet-era model of decision-making, are rare but often significant. A Congress of Deputies gave rise to Transnistria in 1990, sparking a war between Moscow-backed separatists and the fledgling Moldovan republic two years later.
No country officially recognizes Transnistria, where Russia has maintained a dwindling military presence for decades, now standing at around 1,500 soldiers.
Before Wednesday, the most recent meeting of Congress was in 2006, when it passed a referendum calling for joining Russia. When Transnistrian politicians unexpectedly announced a new meeting, analysts suggested that this could lead to new calls for unification with Russia. Moldovan and Ukrainian officials downplayed this speculation.
The congress stopped short of this extreme outcome and instead passed a resolution appealing to Russia to provide more than 220,000 Russian citizens in Transnistria with greater “protection” from Moldovan authorities.
“Transnistria will persistently fight for its identity, the rights and interests of the people of Transnistria and will not give up protecting them, despite any blackmail or external pressure,” the resolution said, according to Russian state media TASS.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that “protecting the interests of the people of Transnistria, our compatriots, is one of the priorities.”
Moldovan authorities dismissed the congress as an attempt to stoke “hysteria.”
“There is no danger of escalation and destabilization of the situation in this region of our country,” spokesman Daniel Voda wrote on Telegram. “What is happening in Tiraspol? [the region’s capital] “It is a propaganda event.”
In a statement to CNN, Moldova’s reintegration office said it “rejects Tiraspol’s propaganda statements and recalls that the Transnistria region benefits from peace, security and economic integration policies with the EU, which are beneficial to all citizens.”
Why hold a conference now?
Russia’s war in Ukraine has had a profound effect on Transnistria’s economy. Ukraine closed its border with Transnistria when the war began, cutting off about a quarter of the enclave’s trade. While it still receives Russian gas for free, the agreement to allow gas transit through Ukraine is set to expire in December and there is no guarantee the deal will be extended.
The war also prompted Moldova to try to resolve its decades-long conflict with Transnistria. Partly in response to the war, the EU granted Moldova candidate status in June 2022, and in December 2023 gave the green light to start accession negotiations.
While Moldova’s President Maia Sandu has indicated she would be willing to join the EU without Transnistria, reunification can speed up the process. A recent Blog of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argued that “Moldova’s strategy is to speed up the process by making life as difficult as possible” for Transnistria.
In this regard, Moldova unexpectedly eliminated tariff relief for Transnistrian companies in January, forcing them to pay taxes to both Transnistria and Moldova.
Dumitru Minzarari, a professor of security studies at the Baltic Defense College, told CNN that Transnistria’s decision to hold a special congress was “directly provoked” by Moldova’s reintroduction of customs duties.
“By offering tax breaks to the separatist region, the Moldovan government had practically been financing the existence of a separatist regime in Tiraspol,” Minzarari said, an arrangement the government no longer felt it should tolerate.
Minzarari said the dispute had created opportunities for Russian authorities to “fish in troubled waters.”
Why is Russia interested in Moldova?
If the Russian invasion of Ukraine had gone as planned, it would have captured the capital kyiv in days and the rest of the country in weeks, running up the Ukrainian coast to the southwestern city of Odessa near Transnistria.
The then commander of Russia’s Central Military Region, Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekaev, said one of the goals of the so-called “special military operation” was to establish a corridor through southern Ukraine to Transnistria, as Russia seeks to reunite with its “ compatriots”. abroad.”
Although Ukraine halted Moscow’s advance in Kherson, about 350 kilometers (220 miles) from Transnistria, analysts have stressed that Russia has maintained its plans for Moldova.
“The Kremlin seeks to use Transnistria as a Russian-controlled proxy that it can use to derail Moldova’s EU accession process, among other things,” the Institute for the Study of War, a group, warned last week in a report. from experts based in the United States. .
Just as Russia found Ukraine’s turn towards the EU in 2014 unacceptable – and used military force to prevent it – it is also keen to prevent the same in Moldova. Last year CNN saw a document drawn up by Russia’s security service, the FSB, detailing its plan to destabilize Moldova and thwart its tilt toward the West.
Putin justified Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk as an effort to protect Russian-speaking citizens in eastern Ukraine, who he claimed were under threat from Kiev.
Minzarari said there were “strong parallels” between that rhetoric and that used recently by the Transnistrian government. in a interview President Vadim Kranoselsky claimed on RIA Novosti that the Moldovan government was preparing to carry out terrorist attacks against Transnistria before a possible invasion, without providing evidence.
However, other analysts argue that, rather than underscoring Russia’s influence in the region, the situation in Transnistria is rather a reminder of how Moscow has so far failed to achieve its key war objectives.
“A call for the annexation of Transnistria rejected by Russia would be a major public relations coup for Ukraine, reminding Russians and Ukrainians that what commentators believed two years ago were modest goals for war are now too far out of Russia’s reach to even consider them,” Ben Dubow, a non-resident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told CNN.