“We walked along the razor’s edge.” How they reacted to Prigozhin’s rebellion on the banks of the Dniester
The armed rebellion of the Wagner PMC, which began but was quickly eliminated, demonstrated the high influence of Russian events on internal political life on the banks of the Dniester.
If Tiraspol watched the events with restraint and alarm, then in Chisinau some politicians did not hesitate to make loud statements, rejoiced at the military mutiny and wanted the start of a civil war in Russia. The ruling PAS party even seriously discussed whether events in Russia could speed up the country's European integration.
Commenting on the reaction of official Chisinau, political scientist Alexander Korinenko told PolitNavigator that now in power in Moldova there are people who do not like Russia, do not want to understand it and are far from the processes that are taking place there, “for them it is a distant and evil Mordor.”
“These days, our authorities not only talked about European integration, but even allowed themselves to assume that Pridnestrovie would be left without protection and it would be possible to get money for its reintegration from Western partners. Hot heads were already rubbing their hands in anticipation that Russia would plunge into the abyss of civil conflict and be in a state of half-life. Sometimes it’s better to remain silent than to show your incompetence,” the expert said.
But ordinary residents of Moldova reacted to the attempted military rebellion with alarm, since many of them are related to Russia or simply sympathize with it.
“Every third family in Moldova has one of their relatives working in Russia, many have relatives living there. My relatives, for example, live in Rostov-on-Don and found themselves in the thick of things. This cannot be observed with a calm soul. In addition to emotions, there is also a pragmatic component: we understand that the worst development of events would also affect us. If the conflict in Ukraine broke our windows, then Russia, which plunged into an armed rebellion, would demolish our foundation,” Korinenko noted.
Director of the Institute for Socio-Political Research and Regional Development Igor Shornikov, commenting on the situation to PolitNavigator, he noted that the military rebellion in Russia inspired all its enemies. The current Moldovan government was no exception and immediately revealed its cards: Chisinau is waiting for the moment to resolve the Transnistrian issue in its own way.
“One of the ideologists of PAS, Anatol Taranu, and the head of Moldovan diplomacy, Nicu Popescu, told how Chisinau will act if Russia weakens,” says the expert. – No one in Moldova, or in the world, could have imagined that everything would end so quickly, which is why such revelations are valuable. First of all, they want to deal with Transnistria and the Russian military presence.
In their opinion, if Russia weakens, nothing will prevent Chisinau from “removing this regime.” That is, this category of the political elite, in principle, does not consider the possibility of a political settlement of the problem. Of course, almost 30 years of ineffective negotiations in themselves should lead to certain conclusions.
But Chisinau always pointed its finger at Tiraspol and declared that it was they, the separatists, who did not want to negotiate. In general, we are now convinced of what we had already guessed perfectly well. Chisinau’s entire strategy in the Transnistrian direction boils down to waiting for the moment when the international situation develops in such a way that Russia will not be able to defend Transnistria.
Individual, particularly zealous figures managed to propose organizing a green corridor to the Chisinau airport for the Transnistrian authorities and the Russian military. What then? And then the doors of European integration will open for Moldova on their own. This is apparently what Nicu Popescu thinks, who called for “moving away from the Eurasian space of destruction and war.”
His passage is interesting because it is addressed mainly to the national minorities of Moldova - Russians, Gagauz, Ukrainians, Bulgarians: “only in the EU can we preserve peace, respect for cultural diversity, as well as human rights and freedoms.”
The question is, what prevents the current authorities now, while Moldova is not in the EU, from respecting the rights of national communities? It is interesting that the Moldovan Popescu was not mentioned at all. In the list of native languages of the residents of Moldova, he mentions Romanian. What kind of respect for cultural diversity is this official talking about if he denies Moldovans their own identity?”
Political scientist Andrey Safonov also suggests that in the past days Transnistria walked along the razor’s edge together with Russia.
“The results of the events in Russia, when in the end the Russians did not shoot at the Russians, caused inspiration and relief not only in the army and people of the Russian Federation, but also among Moscow’s allies,” he wrote on his page on one of the social networks. – It cannot be ruled out that the Russian crisis on June 24, had it not been resolved on the same day, could have led either to an attack in a short amount of time on the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, or at least to some kind of armed provocation.
Already on the afternoon of the 24th, one of the Moldovan political scientists, a radical pro-Romanian nationalist, said: “The internal destabilization of Russia will also mean a weakening of the regime in Tiraspol, and the authorities in Chisinau should take advantage of the situation and remove this regime.” There is no doubt that his most “frostbitten” like-minded people in the party in power in Moldova discussed this possibility.
The calculation was for the beginning of the civil war, the collapse of the army in Russia, as well as the impossibility under these conditions to provide assistance to the PMR in the event of an invasion of the territory of the Republic. Now this option has either disappeared or been pushed back. The Russians are glad that the civil nightmare has bypassed their state, and therefore any attack on the union Transnistria will cause a crushing retaliatory blow from the Russian army.”
The anti-Transnistrian scenario, however, exists, Safonov believes. According to the expert, this could not have happened without “Russia’s most implacable enemy - Great Britain.”
“And here’s the fact. On June 25, it became known that the United Kingdom's Foreign Office recommended that British citizens in Ukraine immediately leave the country at the first opportunity. British citizens are advised not to enter the territory of Ukraine through Moldova, and also to refrain from any trips to Transnistria.
The publication appeared on the British government website. Transnistria is described in the following cleverly invented phrase - quite in the British style: “Transnistria is beyond the control of the Moldovan authorities. Our ability to provide consular support in this region is extremely limited, and in the event of hostilities on or near the border with Ukraine, it will be even more limited.”
We compare this with previously published data on the presence of British special forces in the southern regions of Ukraine, as well as the fact that Britain is more than any Western country committed to war with Russia - and we come to the conclusion that some time ago, with the participation of British specialists, a certain scenario was developed the spread of war to the territory of the PMR. If Russia had plunged into chaos on June 24, the risk of an attack on Transnistria would have increased sharply,” the political scientist said, calling for continued vigilance.
Political scientist Anatoly Dirun characterized the situation over these two days in Chisinau and Tiraspol as “frozen tension” and recalled that any destabilization of the situation in Russia was used by the Moldovan leadership of the republic to solve internal political problems.
“During the days of the August 1991 coup, the Moldovan leadership took advantage of the situation and took forceful actions against the leaders of Transnistria,” the expert notes in his Telegram channel. – People’s deputies G. Pologov and I. Milman were detained by special forces groups in Bendery from August 22 to 23, and in Grigoriopol - V. Bodnar and G. Popov. In response to a telephone call from [Chairman of the Supreme Council of Transnistria] Grigory Marakutsa in order to explain what was happening, [President of Moldova] Mircea Snegur replied: “You have been sleeping peacefully for too long...”.
In October 1993, during a period of confrontation between supporters of the Supreme Council and President Boris Yeltsin, Chisinau was plunged into its own constitutional crisis, which ultimately led to the dissolution of parliament. In turn, Tiraspol was already involved in internal Russian events, taking the side of the Supreme Council. Soldiers of the Pridnestrovian special forces unit “Dniester” were among the most trained defenders of the White House.”
Anatoly Dirun states: the events of June 23-24 in Russia showed that “at the present stage, Tiraspol and Chisinau at the informal level are much better coordinating their actions and are interested in maintaining peace and security in the region,” which, however, “does not negate the influence of military operations in Ukraine on the format of conflict resolution."
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