Eyes on Moldova as Tensions between the pro-Western gov't and Russian Forces Rise
Where will the next front vs. Russia be? Here's a bit of information on where I think escalation is quite plausible: Modova, if only because legacy media all but avoids the topic
As you know, every now and then I’m revisiting pieces I penned some time ago to see how they are holding up. Believe it or not, two years ago I wrote two pieces about a place called Transnistria, a separate ‘republic’ of mainly ethnic Russians (and some other minorities) located in Moldova, a small country neighbouring Ukraine. Part of the USSR since 1945, it also has a contingent of Russian, UN-mandated peacekeepers [EDIT: I was made aware by a reader and commenter that this is incorrect; thank you for pointing this out. The force was there as part of a OSCE-ex-post-mandated/ok’ed arrangement, as per the Marshall Fund’s website], which the pro-US Moldovan gov’t is dying to ‘get out’ for about two decades, and which Ukrainian forces are trying to attack for some time to drag ‘other’ forces into their war with Russia.
Today is such a day of revisiting such pieces, mainly prompted by a recent piece Thomas Röper of the Anti-Spiegel wrote the other day.
Mr. Röper is a German who resides in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is providing very helpful translations of what goes on in Russia (for those who read German). For his activities, Germany froze his bank accounts some time ago, and there appear to be problems with the books he’s publishing every so often.
Is Mr. Röper ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in his assessments? Well, his critics claim he’s a ‘Putin stooge’ and the like, but whatever he may be, he certainly presents quite different viewpoints from those found in Western legacy media.
As always, translation and emphases mine, as are the bottom lines.
Moldova Gears Up for War with Transnistria
Moldova is moving heavy weapons to Transnistria and the government in Tiraspol is concerned about the rapid militarisation of the country. Anthony Blinken has visited Moldova and promised a further US$ 50m to ‘strengthen their ability to resist Russian influence’.
By Thomas Röper, Anti-Spiegel, 31 May 2024 [source]
The Moldovan puppet government under Maia Sandu is making great efforts to accelerate integration into the EU. It holds weekly NATO military exercises in Moldova, in which contingents from the USA and Romania take part. Interestingly, these exercises have increased at the Moldovan Bulboaca military training area, 8 kilometres from the Transnistrian border, where more and more heavy weapons, ammunition, and armoured personnel carriers are being stored.
The relocation of equipment to the border is always a worrying sign. Oleg Belyakov, head of the Transnistrian delegation, expressed concern about the increasing pressure.
We see that real combat operations are being practised? We see that the means of mobilisation are being tested, that personnel and equipment are being moved to the mobilisation points and that exercises are being organised with the use of fairly high-tech weapons.
According to [Russian] experts, the Moldovan government is preparing for a war with Transnistria, which will probably commence after the presidential elections in autumn. If Maia Sandu wins again, the conflict will escalate. In this case, Moldova will find itself in a conflict with Russia, which it is very likely to seek.
As in every conflict, there is also an American trail here. Anthony Blinken has promised to look into providing US$ 50 million to the Moldovan government to ‘strengthen resilience against Russian influence’ and implement reforms. Since the start of the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict [in Feb. 2022], the USA has provided Moldova with 774 million US dollars in financial aid [for comparison, according to the Ministry of Truth, Moldova’s GDP is some US$ 43.862b].
In addition, the US government has imposed sanctions against Moldovan opposition members, for which President Sandu expressed her gratitude during Blinken’s visit. Blinken took the opportunity to threaten everyone with US sanctions that would ‘undermine Moldovan democracy’.
Moldova has two ‘arch-enemies’: the breakaway region Transnistria and the autonomous region of Gagauzia. They are labelled as such in Chisinau because they oppose unification with Romania, NATO accession, and the loss of their cultural identity, in particular the introduction of the official language, which in Moldova has recently been Romanian.
Transnistria
Transnistria is an unrecognised republic that announced its secession from Moldova in Soviet times. The main reason was the fear that Moldova would join Romania due to nationalist protests. The conflict escalated into a civil war in 1992, which was ended by a Russian peacekeeping contingent. The conflict remains frozen to this day, but Transnistria is making efforts to normalise relations with Moldova. This year, Tiraspol proposed a declaration to Chisinau in which it committed itself to a peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian-Moldovan conflict.
Gagauzia
Gagauzia is a small autonomous unit in Moldova that is mainly inhabited by the Gagauz people. The autonomy with a population of around 250,000 attaches great importance to its culture, language and traditions. Accordingly, accession to Romania and integration into the EU is viewed negatively there. I recently wrote an article in which I reported in detail on the history of this people and their struggle for independence and the preservation of their national identity and religion.
Gagauzia is actively cooperating with Russia. Recently, the head of the autonomous unit, Eugenia Gutsul, visited Russia and met Vladimir Putin. They discussed the development of cooperation and agreed on Moscow's support in improving prosperity in Gagauzia. For example, Russia and Gagauzia discussed favourable taxes for agricultural producers and price discounts for gas.
Gagauzia is a pro-Russian region. In 2014, a referendum was held to determine the foreign policy course. 98% of participants were in favour of the republic’s integration into the Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. You can find out what this organisation is in my article.
The official Moldovan government is exerting strong pressure on the Gagauzian government. Last year, Moldovan President Maia Sandu refused to accept the elected head of Gagauzia, Eugenia Gutsul, into the Moldovan government, thereby violating the Moldovan constitution. In an interview with the pro-Western Russian journalist Yuri Dud, she refused to see this as a violation of Moldova’s laws and constitution.
The Sandu government has been repeatedly criticised for its hostile attitude towards the opposition, which has manifested itself in searches of opposition party representatives at the airport, among other things. There were massive searches at the end of April, for example, when a group of opposition politicians were searched and interrogated on their return from Moscow and the chairman of the People’s Assembly of Autonomy, Dimitri Konstantinov, had his diplomatic passport confiscated. Moldova recently revoked the licences of five television stations that provided a platform for the opposition.
This is how democracy, freedom of expression and freedom of the press work in Maia Sandu’s Moldova.
Bottom Lines
With the eyes of legacy media firmly fixated on ‘other stuff’—chief among them the ongoing conflicts in the Near East, Georgia (in the Caucasus, not the US state), and, of course, Anthony Blinken singing in a a Kyiv bar—there’s hardly anyone in legacy media who looks elsewhere.
If you’d read, or skimmed, my two above-linked pieces, you know that what appears to transpire in Moldova is very close to what happened in Ukraine between the Maidan putsch 2014 and the opening of hostilities with the break-away regions.
Like in Ukraine, we see ‘Western’ (mainly US) shenanigans: ‘aid’ in the form of money, military exercises, and repeated affirmations that Chisinau is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged member of ‘the Collective West™’ by joining the EU and NATO.
Here’s another plot twist, though, that should give us all something to think about: like Ukraine, there’s a chapter on Moldova in the pertinent (notorious) RAND Corp. publication Extending Russia (pp. 130-5), which read, among others:
The United States could also push for closer NATO and European integration with Moldova. While Moldova officially remains neutral, it already adopted the Partnership for Peace program in 1994 and Individual Partnership Action Plan in 2006. Moldova also contributed a token number of peacekeepers to the Kosovo operation beginning in 2013. Under this option, the United States would encourage closer NATO cooperation with Moldova and possibly eventually offer it membership.
Finally, Washington could urge Moldova to terminate the July 21, 1994, cease-fire agreement between Moldovan President Mircea Snegur and Russian President Yeltsin that serves as the legal basis for Russian ‘peacekeepers’ in Transnistria. Ultimately, the intent here would be to increase the diplomatic costs for Russia to continue its presence in the area.
So, what about the Russian troops in Transnistria? As the same RAND report notes under the header ‘risks’ (no kidding),
the Transnistrian regime and population might violently resist incorporation into Moldova, a resistance that Moscow could abet from afar. Indeed, it is probably a concern about such a conflict that leads Moldova to tolerate the continued Russian military presence. Assuming such resistance could be overcome, the United States and the EU would be expected to pick up the tab for any postconflict reconstruction.
It is almost as if RAND muses about something, which then happens (do make sure to check out that report’s pages about Georgia). And when Russia! Russia! Russia! responds invades yet another notionally sovereign country, Western legacy media will go into overdrive.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider myself a supporter of Mr. Putin’s, and I’m not naive enough to understand the duplicity and hypocrisy inherent in ‘international relations’.
I do object to this ratcheting up of tensions that might well lead to a big escalation between nuclear-armed powers because it is both insane and, very likely, get us all, or at least a significant number of people, killed.
So, resist the temptation to follow legacy media’s spin or, at least, make sure you do your due diligence.
If I’d had to bet where the next escalation may occur, I’d nominate Moldova/Transnistria: there are (potential) break-away regions, Russian forces are already present, there are long-standing attempts by Ukraine to attack said Russian forces (for evidence, see the two above-linked pieces), and the current Moldovan gov’t is deeply entangled with the US/NATO/EU bloc.
Moreover, neighbouring Romania is already a NATO/EU member-state, some 82% of Moldova’s population are ethnic Romanians, and the country used to be part of Romania between 1918 and 1944. While Moldovans might not want to re-join their big brother (Romania), facilitating this move might look like a f****** brilliant idea, as it would bring Moldovans into both the EU and NATO overnight, and then there’s the option of shortening the driving/flying time from NATO territory to Odessa.
Pray tell, what (else) could go wrong?
And contrary to what you write the Russian "Peacekeepers" in Transnistria do not have and have never had a UN Mandate to there. In fact by agreement they were supposed to have withdrawn in 1994. The only involvement the UN has ever had in relation to them was to pass a resolution of the General Assembly in 2018 for the Russian forces to leave.
I trust that the above mistruths are due to you sloppily parroting bad sources and not deliberate dishonesty.
When you start your article with a wildly inaccurate assertion (Transnistria is not "mainly" Russian - its about 30% Russian, about the same percentage Moldovan, and a little less than a quarter Ukrainian). it becomes difficult to trust any of the other facts you subsequently present.
In any event, Tranistria only exists because of heavily subsidized Russian gas. When that comes to an end, union with Moldova (and even Romania) will become the most attractive option.