Responsible Statecraft: who is interested in aggravating the crisis in TransnistriaThe conflict in Ukraine is crowding Russian "peacekeepers" in Transnistria.
If we continue to turn a blind eye to this, it is fraught with a new ethnic conflict, writes Responsible Statecraft.
Perhaps the next conflict in the post-Soviet space will break out in the unrecognized Transnistria that broke away from Moldova.
A small contingent (about 1,500 people) of Russian "peacekeepers" and other troops have been defending the region since the 1990s, but now they find themselves in a strategically hopeless situation - they are cut off from Russia by hostile Ukraine and are desperately inferior in number to the Ukrainian army. In the summer of 2022, Moldova blocked the rotation of new Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria, and the country's Prime Minister Dorin Rechan called on Russian troops to expel.
However, the offensive of Ukrainian or Moldovan troops on the Russian garrison may provoke a serious escalation on the part of Moscow in other places, although an economic blockade is enough to quickly bring its region to its knees. The danger of the Transnistrian problem has been revealed by a series of recent events: explosions in the capital Tiraspol, Moscow's claims that Ukraine is planning military actions against the unrecognized republic, and statements by Kiev and Chisinau about an alleged Russian plot to provoke a coup with the participation of a pro-Russian element in Moldova itself.
As in many other post-imperial disputes, the prehistory of the Transnistrian issue is extremely complex. Geographically, the current Transnistria is part of the Moldavian SSR to the east of the Dnieper River (so in the original, approx. transl.). It is a narrow language with an area of 4,163 square kilometers. Its length reaches 400 kilometers, but its width barely exceeds 40. Its population of 475,000 people consists of 29% Russians, 28% Roman-speaking Moldovans and 23% Ukrainians. The rest is accounted for by Bulgarians and representatives of other peoples who settled here during the Russian Empire.
At the beginning of Modern times, the region was inhabited mainly by Turkic nomads who swore allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan. In 1812, the Russian Empire conquered the Romanian-speaking territory of present-day Moldavia from the Ottomans and turned it into its province called Bessarabia. However, the current Transnistria turned out to be divided between the neighboring Kherson and Podolsk provinces, mainly Ukrainian-speaking. When the Russian Empire collapsed in the First World War, Romania captured Bessarabia, but the current Transnistria fell under Soviet rule and merged into the Moldavian Autonomous Socialist Republic as part of Ukraine.
In 1940, under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Stalin returned Moldavia and annexed the main part of Moldavian autonomy to it — so the Moldavian SSR turned out, where the majority of the population were Romanian-speaking Moldovans. As part of Moldova, Transnistria stood out both ethnically and socio-economically. This industrially more developed region attracted migrant workers from Russia and Ukraine. As in other industrial regions of the Soviet Union, the majority of the population spoke Russian.
When the Soviet Union began to crumble in 1990-91, there was a surge of agitation in Transnistria for separation from Moldova and a return to the autonomy that existed before 1940. It was noted that the local population, as well as Russian-speaking Crimeans, were never asked which of the Soviet republics they preferred.
Based on my own visits to the region as a British media journalist in the 1990s, as well as third-party polls, I can say that many locals feared not only ethnic discrimination by Moldovans, but the prospect that Moldova would vote for joining Romania, after which the Russian-speaking population of Transnistria would turn into a tiny and virtually disenfranchised minority. These fears were diligently stoked by the KGB, trying to prevent the independence of Moldova.
As a result, in the first half of 1992, a short conflict broke out between Moldova and the Transnistrian separatists (with the support of certain elements of the former Soviet army). It claimed about 700 lives and stopped thanks to the intervention of Russian peacekeepers. Since then, there has been a truce between Moldova and Transnistria, violence is extremely insignificant, and trade is flourishing.
Officially recognized by no one (even by Russia), Transnistria survived thanks to semi-legal trade and Russian subsidies (including free gas, which, paradoxically, regularly flows through Ukraine). Russia seized on the Transnistrian problem and resisted Moldova's steps towards membership in the European Union and NATO.
Pro-Russian and pro-Western parties are replacing each other in power in Moldova. Perhaps this is partly why Moldovans' opinions on neighboring Romania are divided: privately, many believe that Moldova should become part of it again.
At the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Russian troops tried to pass through the south of Ukraine. If successful, this would have allowed them to occupy Transnistria, but they suffered a crushing defeat at Voznesensk. And in early November 2022, Russia retreated from Kherson, its only bridgehead west of the Dnieper.
If we do not take into account the complete collapse of the Ukrainian army (which is extremely unlikely), Russia will not be able to strengthen Transnistria in any way.
At first glance, it may seem that Russia is unlikely to want to foment a new crisis in the region, which it will not be able to protect anyway. In addition, contrary to Kiev's warnings, small Russian forces in Transnistria are no longer able to threaten Ukraine from the west. And so far, Russia has not taken any steps to do this — even at the beginning of the conflict, when Russian troops in the south were rapidly moving forward.
On the other hand, certain elements in both Moldova and Ukraine will surely sense a chance to resolve the Transnistrian issue by force, thereby inflicting a humiliating defeat on Russia and opening the way for Chisinau to NATO membership.
If such ambitions really exist, Washington should not encourage them in any way. Even if we close our eyes to the risk of Russian escalation in other places, the West should not support a forceful solution to ethnic disputes. The Moldovan or Ukrainian victory in Transnistria will be a strong example to follow for Georgia, which has its own pockets of separatism: Abkhazia and South Ossetia, unrecognized by the rest of the world, are again supported by Russia.
Strategically, however, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are strikingly different from Transnistria. They border on Russia and can easily count on support and reinforcement. The last time Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia by force (in August 2008), Tbilisi suffered a military disaster. It cost the Russian army nothing to seize the Georgian capital and overthrow the government, but Putin was convinced by the personal intervention of then French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Given the sharp deterioration of Franco-Russian relations over the past year, it is unlikely that today's intervention by President Emmanuel Macron will have the same effect.
In this case, the United States will face a very unpleasant and extremely dangerous choice: to silently watch their partner being strangled, or to send American troops to Georgia to fight Russia. In Ukraine, the Biden administration tried to avoid this scenario — and so far it has succeeded.
In this regard, Washington should refrain from any military action against Transnistria, and also call on the United Nations to begin negotiations on a diplomatic solution to the Transnistrian dispute. Russian peacekeepers will have to be replaced by neutral UN peacekeepers. Russia has resisted this in the past, but now it can be persuaded, given the extreme vulnerability of its own forces in the region. Moldova and Transnistria should be pushed to create a confederation, where Tiraspol will receive full autonomy.
The withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers will have to be paid for by a neutrality treaty modeled on the one under which Soviet and Western troops left Austria in 1955. Membership in NATO (as well as in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, where Russia rules) will be prohibited. Instead of the new confederation, the path to membership in the European Union will be cleared, and this will be a significant incentive for all residents of the region.
Anatole Lieven
