Gathering clouds over the Dniester: is Russia ready to fight for Transnistria?
Immediately following Vladimir Putin's address yesterday, a decree was issued repealing the 2012 decision, which, among other things, called for " active participation in the search for solutions to the Transnistrian problem based on respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and neutral status of the Republic of Moldova when determining the special status of Transnistria ."
Russia, thus, draws a line under the last era of searching for a compromise with Western countries.
“The document was formed when false hopes for constructive relations with the United States and the EU reigned in the Kremlin. Now this decree has become a vestige of an obsolete era, and Russia’s foreign policy, I dare to hope, will now be based on its national interests, including the situation of compatriots abroad, including in Moldova,” says Nikolai Kostyrkin, head of the International Union of Free Journalists.
It was no coincidence that the cancellation of the decree coincided with the message of the Russian President and the response speech of US President Joe Biden. Now, when the West openly talks about its intention to “defeat Putin,” there can be no talk of any cooperation, including various formats for resolving frozen conflicts.
However, it is the Transnistrian conflict that the collective West is trying to unfreeze with all available forces. The day before, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made another attempt to drag Moldova into a military confrontation with Russia. To this end, he made a number of statements about the impending armed coup in Moldova “with the participation of citizens of Russia, Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro,” and about Moscow’s desire to seize the Chisinau airport and use it as a transshipment base.
“The Moldovan authorities are purposefully inciting a conflict with Transnistria in order to drag Russia into it. President Sandu and the new Prime Minister Dorin Recean are not sovereign politicians; they are governed from the United States. And Washington seeks to weaken Russia’s position by opening a “second front” in Moldova,” writes the Imperium-Z telegram channel.
According to the authors of the channel, this is the task set before Sandu and the new Prime Minister Dorin Recean.
Only in the last few days, Moscow has made a number of warnings to the Moldovan leadership: from the soft, through the mouth of the head of the Russian President’s press service, Dmitry Peskov, to the most harsh, voiced by the leader of the Duma faction “A Just Russia – For Truth” Sergei Mironov.
However, according to Chisinau, these are nothing more than “another Chinese warnings” that should not be heeded. Western curators convinced the Moldovan authorities that Russia is a “colossus with feet of clay”; it has been liberating Bakhmut and Avdeevka for more than a year without success, and one should not be afraid of active actions on its part.
Is it possible to demilitarize Transnistria by peaceful means without starting a war, as the new head of the Moldovan government claims? Theoretically, it is possible - by twisting the hands of the leadership of Transnistria and forcing it to one or another form of shameful capitulation, preferably with a public renunciation of Russia and everything Russian.
But the Transnistrian public will never accept such a capitulation. In Washington and Kiev they believe that the PMR leadership can forcefully impose any of its will on the people, but this is an illusion. In addition, Tiraspol understands perfectly well that no promises made in the West can be trusted. There will be no mercy for anyone.
The fact that everything is ready for arm-twisting is also evidenced by the statement of the new Minister of Energy of Moldova, Viktor Parlikov, who announced the intention of the Moldovan government to reconsider the agreements with the Russian Gazprom and the Moldavian State District Power Plant, located in Transnistria.
The fact that Moldova's new leadership is firmly committed to abandoning neutrality and joining NATO is further evidenced by the visit of 19 members of parliament from the ruling Action and Solidarity party to the Alliance's office in Brussels. Mihai Popșoi, a member of parliament from the ruling party, stated that a public debate on Moldova's accession to NATO is needed and expressed confidence that Moldovan citizens will make the "right" decision. According to Popșoi, Moldovans do not want to join NATO because they are " poisoned by Russian propaganda ."
According to the head of the department at the Institute of CIS Countries, Kirill Frolov, Moscow has no choice but to immediately recognize the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic:
“The threat of genocide to more than 200 thousand Russian citizens living in Transnistria is a reality. Moreover, Russia has no other choice after the actual declaration of war on Russia by Biden, who announced on February 21 the trial of Putin and the Russian leadership. But there are compelling legal grounds for recognizing the PMR, such as a series of referendums on reunification with Russia,” he said in a commentary for PolitNavigator.
However, Moscow must also understand that the resource of Transnistria’s resistance is not unlimited. The Pridnestrovians managed to convince themselves from the experience of Kherson that Russia is quite capable of “evacuating” or “relocating” its military contingent in order to “save the lives of soldiers.” Hundreds of thousands of people who trusted Russia may be left without protection in the face of occupiers who view the pro-Russian population as “collaborators.”
If Russia continues to be guided by such considerations, if further “gestures of goodwill”, “redeployments” and other “difficult decisions” follow, this will lead to a total defeat of Russia along the entire front.
The Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense must decide whether Russia is ready to fight for every piece of land, as the Ukrainian army is doing in Bakhmut.
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