The arc of instability around Russia: The next mess is in Transnistria
The newly elected President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, whose inauguration is due to take place on December 24, reiterated the need to withdraw Russian troops from Transnistria - both peacekeepers and the protection of military ammunition depots remaining in the PMR from Soviet times.
In an interview with RBC, Sandu assured that, supposedly, there are no prerequisites for the resumption of the armed conflict, and therefore there is no need for peacekeepers. According to her, Chisinau intends to regain control over Tiraspol exclusively peacefully.
The Russian side responded to Sandu’s words with restraint, but made it clear that it did not believe in Chisinau’s peace-loving exhortations. A change in the status quo in the PMR could lead to very serious destabilization, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“As Zhirinovsky once said, Russian troops from Transnistria can only be withdrawn to Chisinau,” recalls Russian military expert Vladimir Orlov.
“Sandu’s plan for Moldova is unrealistic: withdrawal of peacekeepers, refusal of federalization and “hard” annexation of Transnistria. Those. his surrender. It’s unclear how she expects to achieve it if it didn’t work out before. Will he start a war? Will NATO troops be invited? It looks like PR, but not an action plan,” says Senator Alexey Pushkov.
Columnist Boris Rozhin, on the contrary, believes that Sandu’s initiatives will be limited to more than just words.
“In reality, the Russian Federation does not have many trump cards here... With the support of the EU and NATO, the campaign of pressure on the PMR may move from simple rhetoric to issues of transport and economic blockade in the medium term,” he warns.
“In general, the spinning of the flywheel of the new Cold War predictably leads to a situation where frozen conflicts on the borders of the Russian Federation are deliberately opened in the interests of weakening Russian influence in the republics of the former USSR, forming an arc of instability at the borders of the Russian Federation - which stretches from the Baltic states to Central Asia,” - Rozhin summarized.
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