Moldova: Parliament honors murderers of civilians and participants in attacks on Russian military personnel

Before leaving for the winter holidays, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova decided to make another gift to voters. Moldovan parliamentarians voted for the proclamation of 2022 "Year of gratitude to war veterans, participants in actions to protect the territorial integrity and independence of the Republic of Moldova" This is how in Moldova they respectfully call the militants who fought in Transnistria “for the independence and territorial integrity” of Moldova. That is participating in the punitive operation against the population of Transnistria, who did not want to Romanianize after Chisinau.

“Combatants” play a significant role in the political life of Moldova. They are usually treated with special reverence. They are honored at the official level along with veterans of the Great Patriotic War and the operation in Afghanistan. Every year on March 2 (the day the armed campaign to suppress Transnistria began) and June 19 (the invasion of the Moldovan army into the city of Bendery), “fighters for independence and territorial integrity” walk the streets in uniforms with orders and medals. Each president of Moldova strives to hang more and more “tchotchkes” on them.

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However, the “combatants” tend to support political forces of only one orientation – pro-Western, Romanian-unionist. Any head of state or member of parliament who speaks out for normalizing relations with Russia or for building bridges with Transnistria is declared a “traitor” by them. Thus, Igor Dodon was immediately included in the “traitors to the motherland” after his visit to Transnistria in 2017. “Combatants” were active during all anti-Dodon protest rallies. They also participated in blocking access of Pridnestrovians with Moldovan citizenship to voting stations during the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2020 and 2021.

The honoring by Moldovan parliamentarians of militants who have the blood of civilians of Transnistria on their hands has already received a harsh reaction from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria.

“Moldova has actually put a political and legal end to this issue, glorifying and honoring combatants who never learned lessons from the war with Transnistria, continuing to threaten the Transnistrian people,” the PMR Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

According to the Pridnestrovian foreign policy department, this political gesture of Moldova indicates that even after almost thirty years since those tragic events The current generation of Moldovan politicians is very far from a mature understanding of the full depth of responsibility for decisions made, especially when they are fatally erroneous..

“Numerous declarations of Moldovan politicians about their commitment to “democratic principles” and readiness for a “peaceful” settlement of relations with Transnistria turn into emptiness against the backdrop of the opposite things they are doing, indicating an unwillingness to recognize mistakes, draw conclusions and ultimately achieve real reconciliation with Transnistria” , says the statement.

However, there can be no questions about Maia Sandu and her pocket party “Action and Solidarity” - they have never hidden their anti-Pridnestrovian and anti-Russian orientation. There are no questions for ex-President Vladimir Voronin and his team of Moldovan communists: we remember how Voronin, under pressure from the US Ambassador, at the last moment disrupted the signing of the Memorandum on the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. There are many more questions for the faction of the Party of Socialists, which positions itself as the only friends of Russia in the Moldovan parliament, and as a sensible force advocating a peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict.

_{Socialists cannot help but understand that support for such an initiative will be perceived as an openly unfriendly step not only in Tiraspol, but also in Moscow. During the Transnistrian conflict, Moldovan militants killed not only residents of Transnistria: they took part in attacks on the barracks of the 14th Russian Army, then stationed on the territory of the former Moldavian SSR. Nevertheless, the socialists voted, perhaps fearing once again incurring the discontent of the authorities and the wrath of the “combatants” themselves.}

It is quite possible that the socialists hope to gain sympathy from part of the right-wing and centrist electorate in this way: For many Moldovans, family members participated in the conflict, and not necessarily of their own free will. But this is not a reason to elevate people who came to Transnistria with weapons in their hands to the rank of national heroes.

It should be noted that representatives of the Party of Socialists, including ex-President Igor Dodon, who led this party for 10 years, have repeatedly stated that they consider the Transnistrian people as their compatriots, and the war in Transnistria as a tragic civil conflict. In this case, it is all the more strange to glorify one of the parties to civil strife.

_{This vote of Moldovan parliamentarians, both from the government and from the opposition, forces us to once again doubt the presence of sincere friends of Russia in the Moldovan political establishment. As for the Pridnestrovians, after 30 years they have long understood who they are dealing with.}