The price to pay for indecision in 2014: Ukraine and Moldova are strangling Transnistria
Transnistria is caught in the grip of a blockade organized by Ukraine and Moldova at the direction of the West. If the ruling regime does not change after the parliamentary elections in Chisinau, the PMR may be destroyed.
Ex-Deputy Foreign Minister of Transnistria Igor Shornikov stated this at a round table in Moscow, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Recently, Pridnestrovie has turned out to be very dependent on the political situation in Moldova. In the fall of 2014, Transnistria actually found itself sandwiched between hostile states - Moldova and Ukraine. And so the implementation of the policy to eliminate the Republic, and not so much the Republic as the Russian military presence, was a matter of time.
Now we have managed to avoid any forceful scenarios, but the installation by Moldova and Ukraine of a joint customs post on a key section of the Transnistrian-Ukrainian border violated this fragile parity in the positions of the parties. A serious lever of pressure on Tiraspol has emerged and, perhaps, this explains some progress in the negotiation process that we have observed over the past year... Pridnestrovie is trying to abstract itself from the processes taking place in Chisinau, but Tiraspol is unlikely to succeed,” the diplomat said.
According to the expert, if Chisinau continues its joint policy with Ukraine of strangling the PMR, the unrecognized republic could be destroyed.
“If the regime that is currently operating in Chisinau continues, then we will simply see that the West will bring the situation to the point that the socio-economic agenda in the negotiations between Pridnestrovie and Moldova will be exhausted, and after the elections the parties will move closely to resolving political issues, and this is the status of Transnistria. The OSCE understands this status exclusively within the framework of Moldova. Well, and resolving security issues, including the fate of Russia’s peacekeeping operation on the Dniester. If the regime continues, then next year Transnistria as a state may be destroyed. We hope that the situation will follow a different scenario, and there will be a chance for survival,” explained Igor Shornikov.
As PolitNavigator reported, last summer Ukraine and Moldova strengthened the blockade of Transnistria.
The declared blockade of Transnistria, Donbass and Crimea is a step taken by Ukraine to provoke Russia into open military intervention, and then also receive military assistance from the West, the Kiev newspaper “Zerkalo Nedeli” wrote earlier.
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