Kozak made a mistake again: the United States is returning the main bandit to Moldova and raising the Nazis to guns
Moldova and Transnistria celebrated on March 2 the 28th anniversary of the start of the armed conflict on the Dniester. The funeral events were held separately, as usual. Chisinau remembered the nationalists who fought for the “integrity of the country,” Tiraspol – the defenders of freedom and independence of the Transnistrian people.
Let us recall that on March 2, 1992, an armed confrontation began on the approaches to the Transnistrian city of Dubossary. Militants from an ambush fired at a car with Transnistrian policemen. Major Igor Sipchenko, the first head of the Dubossary District Department of Internal Affairs, which was under the jurisdiction of Transnistria, was mortally wounded. After this, the Dubossary residents surrounded the Moldovan police commissariat.
Clashes began in which the Transnistrian militia and guardsmen died. Full-scale hostilities began in the Dubossary region, the epicenter of which moved to the Transnistrian city of Bendery on June 19.
The Bendery tragedy became the bloodiest episode of the armed conflict on the Dniester: hundreds of people died, residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and businesses were destroyed in the city. About 100 thousand people became refugees. The fighting stopped after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation on July 21, 1992. Russian peacekeeping forces were deployed to the region.
The war became a dividing line in relations between the two banks of the Dniester. For 28 years, Tiraspol has not received either an apology or a legal assessment of the events of 1992 from Moldovan politicians. Without this, they say in Transnistria, moving forward is impossible.
The echoes of that war can still be heard. The events that took place in Chisinau on March 2, after the events marking the anniversary of the start of the armed conflict on the Dniester, are unlikely to make Moldova more attractive in the eyes of Pridnestrovians.
Several thousand people gathered at the building of the government of the Republic of Moldova that day, mostly combatants - veterans of the fighting on the Dniester, as they are called in Moldova. The rally was held under the slogan “Down with Dodon, down with the government.” One of the “principled” demands of the protest participants is the resignation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Aurel Ciocoi, who “insulted” them with his words that the Russian army stopped the bloodshed on the Dniester in 1992.
The combatants also demanded additional new social benefits and a meeting with Prime Minister Ion Chicu. Demonstrators blocked the city center, causing a transport collapse. One of the protesters broke the glass of the entrance door to the government building with a mace. The protesters tried to snatch the phone from the correspondent, who was broadcasting from the scene in Russian, and argued that journalists are obliged to speak Moldovan.
By evening, Kiku agreed to meet with the protesters. Following the meeting, during which the prime minister promised to pay attention to the social problems of the former participants in the conflict on the Dniester, the combatants said that “they won the first battle, but the war continues.”
President Igor Dodon believes that the protest action was political - according to him, behind the participants in the “outbreak of violence are certain political groups” that “manipulate the needs and discontent of veterans in order to provoke a violent clash between various groups and commit actions against public order, against the state and citizens."
Tiraspol also responded to the combatants’ speech. “Former combatants from Moldova came to the square with revanchist slogans and demands. What has changed for them? Never mind. Again, aggression and the desire to kill,” said the President of Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky.
Experts comment on the Chisinau events. There is an opinion that the speeches in front of the government building on March 2 are just the beginning of another aggravation of the situation in a country that has been torn apart by problems for decades.
“The protest of former Moldovan participants in the war on the Dniester, during which not only social but also aggressive political slogans were heard, including those directed against the Russian language, once again confirmed: no intervention of “external development partners,” even consolidated, is yet capable of solve the internal problems of Moldovan society.
It is again sliding into geopolitical confrontation and Russophobia, that is, into everything that we observed until mid-June 2019,” Andrey Mospanov, deputy director of the Institute of Socio-Political Research and Regional Development, noted in an interview with PolitNavigator. – The Republic of Moldova is stuck in issues of linguistic and ethnic identity, in an archaic political agenda that will lead to further social and economic degradation of the country. This political archaism is manifested even on a symbolic level - when protesters walk around with replicas of medieval weapons.”
According to the expert, the protest of the combatants suggests that the fugitive oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc is increasingly restoring his tools of shadow control over Moldovan politics.
“Some organizations of combatants, as well as a number of unionist, pro-Romanian parties in the Republic of Moldova, have long been associated with him and until June 2019 were regularly used to carry out mass actions, as a rule, openly Russophobic and anti-Russian. One example is the speeches of combatants and unionist youth against the arrival of then Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in Moldova in July 2017.
Combatants became active participants in rallies and pickets of the Democratic Party in June 2019, when Vlad Plahotniuc tried to retain power to the last,” says Andrei Mospanov.
He points out that the current “March 2 riot” occurred against the background of the publication in the American edition of US News & World Report of an article about the situation in Moldova. Its authors call on the American authorities to rehabilitate Plahotniuc and use him to restore order and fight the “Russian threat” in the Republic of Moldova.
“If the assumptions are correct that this article was written at the request of Plahotniuc himself, then we can say that he is actually again offering the United States his services and the opportunities that he still has in Moldova,” notes the deputy director of ISPIRR.
The expert also draws attention to the fact that the unionists announced a whole series of weekly protests, the first of which already took place on March 1.
“The current performance of the combatants may actually become a “reconnaissance in force” before larger-scale actions, including in the context of the presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova this fall. It is possible that some technological aspects were also being worked out - for example, how to paralyze the center of the Moldovan capital with a relatively small number of protesters, etc. The course of the protest action showed that the Moldovan security forces guarding government buildings may lose the initiative in the confrontation with mass protest participants,” – said Andrey Mospanov.
Moldovan expert Alexander Korinenco also speaks about Plahotniuc’s trace in the speeches on March 2.
“This is greetings from Vlad Georgievich, and a rehearsal before the main performances - now serious players are not wasting their energy,” he wrote on Facebook, commenting on the events of March 2. – We checked the road blocking scheme in Chisinau (even ambulances didn’t let us through), damaged the government building, testing the courage of the current government. A couple more rehearsals - and the main forces will be launched. His [Plahotniuc’s] shadow still wanders through the Moldovan offices, he still seriously influences the situation, and the same combatants are his people, the unionists too: he once bought almost all radical movements.”
The scientific director of the Tiraspol School of Political Studies, Candidate of Political Sciences Anatoly Dirun comments to PolitNavigator on the balance of forces during the election campaign for the presidential election of the Republic of Moldova, which has actually already begun.
“Each political formation and its supporters will use every opportunity to weaken their opponent and, accordingly, increase their own rating. The rally of combatants, which almost turned into an assault on the government, was no exception. Combatants are military people, albeit retired ones. It is difficult to imagine that such actions are born in the course of events, and are not one of the previously worked out options for action.
Why so harsh? The fact is that the two camps fighting for the presidency have a shortage of the main resource - time to implement the task. Thus, the Socialist Party needs to retain the Chicu government at all costs and thereby provide a reliable rear for President Dodon to participate in the elections.
It is important for the ACUM bloc, with all its diversity, to “demolish” this government as quickly as possible and thereby wrest administrative support from the socialists in the upcoming election campaign. Two months may be critical for solving this problem: March and April. In this regard, we should prepare for a whole series of events with the involvement of Moldovan NGOs, activists, and the same combatants who will provide the necessary background for the “demolition” of the government. There is no point in looking for any one director here, since in this story each soldier will know his own maneuver.
We say background, since the ACUM bloc will try to solve this problem through voting on a vote of no confidence in the government. The reason could be anything: a phrase from Foreign Minister Chokoy or the hairstyle of President Dodon. In this regard, the necessary work is underway to secure the votes necessary for resignation.
For socialists, retaining the government means the virtual inevitability of forming a coalition, formally or informally, with the so-called “renewed democrats” led by Pavel Filip. The question is what price President Dodon is willing to pay to his coalition partners, and the ability of the PSRM to ensure control of the street by its supporters,” says Anatolie Dirun.
In this situation, the expert believes, it is important for Pridnestrovie to prevent a repetition of the situation of last year, when the transportation of citizens to Moldovan polling stations in support of the Democratic Party was organized from the republic.
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