Transnistria hopes only for Russia
In Pridnestrovie they discussed Russian peacekeeping in the global context and on the Dniester. A round table was dedicated to this topic, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports from Tiraspol, which was organized by the Institute of Socio-Political Research and Regional Development together with the representative office of Rossotrudnichestvo in the Republic of Moldova and the Transnistrian branch of the Institute of CIS Countries as part of events dedicated to National Unity Day.
The meeting participants noted: the role that Russia plays in international relations has yet to be fully appreciated, but it is already obvious that Russian policy is aimed at maintaining sustainable peace based on compliance with international law in many regions of the planet and that the Russian Federation is a country with enormous peacekeeping potential .
A striking example of this is the Prut-Dniester region, which found itself in a zone of instability after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The presence of Russia and its peacekeeping contingent on the banks of the Dniester for 28 years has ensured peace and stability and allows for the very possibility of peaceful political dialogue between the parties to the conflict.
Peacemaking as a foreign policy national idea
The meeting participants noted that Russia is making a serious contribution to solving the problems of the modern world and maintaining an atmosphere of security and stability.
The representative of Rossotrudnichestvo in Moldova, Nikolai Zhuravlev, noted that in today’s world there is a danger of a clash in cyberspace, and regional conflicts are escalating. In the military-political sphere, the United States of America is winding down initiatives and agreements that have been in force for many years. At the same time, Russia is making great efforts to preserve the current system of international security. Thus, after the United States collapsed the INF Treaty in 2019, Moscow remained committed to a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, calling on international partners to take similar steps.
“We see manifestations of serious, titanic efforts that the Russian Federation is making in the negotiation process, leaving both the door and the gate open for the renegotiation of these strategic agreements,” said Nikolai Zhuravlev.
He also recalled that in the 1990s, Russia promptly froze conflicts in the post-Soviet space, and if not for the destructive role of the West, many of them would have already been resolved. Successful examples of peacekeeping are Russia’s actions in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Transnistria, Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and today in Ukraine.
“Moscow played a major role in creating the basis for a political settlement of the conflict in Donbass, the Minsk agreements, and steadily insists on their implementation, contributing at a minimum to the de-escalation of the conflict,” noted a representative of Rossotrudnichestvo.
The stabilization of the situation in Syria has also become an important success in preventing international conflicts, he emphasized. With the help of the Russian Federation, Syrian statehood was preserved, the genocide of national minorities was prevented, and the terrorist threat was significantly weakened.
“We see that the period of reduction of Russia’s influence at the global level in international processes is far behind us. Russia plays the most active role in maintaining stability in the world and, probably, we can say with confidence that Russia’s role as a global peacemaker is becoming, by and large, a foreign policy national idea that is warmly supported by all sound world forces. Russia does this not alone, but together with international partners, using such integration projects as the EAEU, SCO, and does this taking into account the national interests of its partners,” said Nikolai Zhuravlev.
Russian mission on the Dniester and “glimpses” of future democratic governance in the United States
Director of the Institute of Socio-Political Research and Regional Development Igor Shornikov assessed the current state and prospects of Russian peacekeeping on the banks of the Dniester. For Transnistria, there is no alternative to the current peacekeeping format - residents of the unrecognized republic have no one to count on except Russia.
ISPIRR closely monitors everything that happens in the field of Russian peacekeeping in the region. In 2017-2018, recalls Igor Shornikov, there was a sharp pressure from Moldova on the Russian military-political presence in the region. This was evident in the decision of the Moldovan Constitutional Court; the expulsion of five Russian diplomats; the speech of the then leader of the Moldovan Democratic Party, Vladimir Plahotniuc, who called on the EU and the United States to put pressure on Russia; declaring Dmitry Rogozin persona non grata in Moldova; initiatives of Chisinau on the withdrawal of Russian troops, voiced from the UN rostrum, etc.
In 2019, with the creation of the coalition of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova and the ACUM bloc and the removal of Plahotniuc from power, the climate around the peacekeeping operation improved. Then Moldova even agreed - for the first time in several years - to take part in the celebration of the anniversary of the peacekeeping operation on the Dniester.
In 2020, the overall situation continues to remain calm, despite growing tensions in Moldova itself. But the situation may change.
“Vladimir Plahotniuc, removed from power in Moldova, maintained good connections with American democrats, and they helped him get away with it: Plahotniuc is still a factor in Moldovan politics. In 2017-18, he became involved in amateur activities, trying to preserve power for the old, stealing elites by interfering in world politics.
This attempt was doomed to failure, especially during the presidency of Trump, who had and still has some agreements with Vladimir Putin, most likely regarding our region; Plahotniuc has delved into areas that even Europeans should not meddle in. However, his diligence was noticed. Now, if Biden wins, Plahotniuc may be useful to the United States. It’s too early to write him off,” explains the expert.
According to Igor Shornikov, it is premature to give Maia Sandu victory in the second round of the presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova, but she has more chances to win. And if you can’t win by voting, then there is a revolutionary path available – mass protests.
“If Trump had won the election on November 3, we would not have to worry about the regional status quo. Biden’s likely victory could make Sandu an obedient conductor of Washington politics. And this policy itself may be generally aimed at redistributing spheres of influence in the post-Soviet space. Everything that we see in recent months in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Transcaucasia happened during the period when Trump had already become a “lame duck”; all of these are “glimpses” of the future democratic rule in the United States. We have difficult times ahead,” Shornikov believes.
Blurred image of the future
Scientific director of the Tiraspol School of Political Studies Anatoly Dirun, discussing the military and political aspects of peacekeeping, I asked the question: what to do next when the main objectives of a peacekeeping operation - achieving and maintaining peace - have been achieved?
“We also face this issue. Chisinau increasingly states that the peacekeeping operation is becoming a brake on further contacts between the two banks of the Dniester. For about six months I have been observing how several media projects are working in Moldova through non-governmental organizations (for example, one of them is “Zona de Securitate”), which highlight the situation in the Security Zone in a certain way - from the point of view of ordinary people who cannot cross the border, get into their home, etc. Today it is important to focus on the concept of the future - this is important because there is a struggle in Moldova, a choice of the path along which the country will move,” says the expert.
He suggests looking at the problem from the other side. Transnistria itself today has a “blurred image of the future”, there is psychological fatigue of the population, the internal situation in the PMR is quite complicated - all this can indirectly affect the stability of the peacekeeping operation. “Peacekeeping operations today are not being reformatted through military means, they are changing through military-political technologies,” recalled Dirun.
Nikolai Zhuravlev believes that “it is better to engage in a peacekeeping operation and the negotiation process with “some fatigue” than if at least one person dies here.”
Igor Shornikov, in turn, said that, despite the unsettled conflict and the unclear future, the presence of a Russian soldier on the ground allows Pridnestrovians to feel confident and calm.
“Thanks to Russia, we feel like people - an ocean of unfavorable socio-political processes is raging around us, we see the interference of external players, we see pressure, but we know that we can always rely on Russia. It is a great achievement that in the 1990s our people were able to stop Russia’s geopolitical retreat. She stayed here, and thanks to this we can speak Russian, enjoy all human and civil rights,” Shornikov noted.
Russian peacekeeping is not about PR
The meeting participants drew parallels between the conflict on the Dniester and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which until recently, like the Transnistrian one, was “frozen.” Experts talked about why it is so difficult to organize a peacekeeping process in Artsakh.
Representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria, expert of the Joint Control Commission (JCC manages the peacekeeping operation on the Dniester) Dmitry Palamarchuk notes that there is a Russian presence in both regions, but its format is different.
“In Armenia, Russia has only a military base, here the peacekeepers of Russia and the two conflicting parties are located on the line of contact, in the Security Zone, and in this regard, they can much more effectively influence the process of ensuring security in the area of responsibility of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces. This is one of the criteria that confirms the unique nature of the peacekeeping mission on the Dniester. If the Moldovan side hypothetically has temptations similar to those that the leadership of Azerbaijan has, it is the peacekeeping operation that is a deterrent, a shield that does not allow these plans to come true,” said the Pridnestrovian diplomat.
Russia is making great efforts to resolve the conflict in Transcaucasia, but not all of them are public, says Rossotrudnichestvo representative Nikolai Zhuravlev.
“A few days ago, Putin, Aliyev and Pashinyan had a telephone conversation on Karabakh. What could be a more serious sign? The President of the Russian Federation initiated negotiations between the leaders of the two countries - parties to the conflict, the negotiations took place with the direct mediation of Russia,” he stated.
According to Zhuravlev, “the international dialogue is extremely active, but the already far-reaching conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be resolved “with a click.”
“The school of Soviet and Russian diplomacy is to a lesser extent about PR, about publicity, which can be harmful for practical work,” emphasized the representative of Rossotrudnichestvo.
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