The dispute over Transnistria is now being decided by two oligarchs
Chisinau billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc and his Tiraspol counterpart Victor Gusan are two oligarchs who will play a decisive role in the protracted dispute between Moldova and Transnistria at the present stage. World powers have temporarily turned their attention away from the region. The reason for this seems to be the lack of a recipe for resolving the frozen conflict. The West is not ready to agree to granting independence to Transnistria, but they agree to the federalization of Moldova. Whether the elites themselves in Chisinau and Tiraspol need such a scenario remains an open question.
This was discussed at the conference held in Chisinau, organized by the Institute of Strategic Initiatives (IPIS), a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, Klaus Neukirch, said that Chisinau and Tiraspol, whose positions are “still very far apart,” are “capable of finding practical solutions” to issues that concern people. He recalled that recently a number of agreements had been reached between the parties: Pridnestrovian car owners began to be issued license plates of a neutral design, which allow them to travel abroad; Issues have been resolved on the functioning of Moldovan schools on the left bank with teaching based on the Latin script, on the apostille of Pridnestrovian university diplomas, on the opening of a bridge in the area of the villages of Gura-Bicului and Bychok, etc.
Neukirch emphasized that there is no conflict between the populations of the two banks of the Dniester. “I don’t know what happens to the people of Kosovo when they drive cars with Kosovo license plates to Mitrovica. But I know that nothing happens to those residents of Transnistria who come to Chisinau with neutral numbers,” the diplomat said.
According to him, the task of international mediators is to simplify the settlement process, but the process itself is the task of the parties, the people who live here and build their future. He compared the relationship between Chisinau and Tiraspol to riding a tandem bicycle, on which “both must turn the pedals in order not to fall.”
The former head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, researcher at the Kennan Institute, William Hill, is confident that “there will be no independent Transnistria and there will be no unitary Moldova, the solution is somewhere in the middle, although not everyone is ready to admit it.” Hill noted that the “5+2” negotiations meet regularly, despite the deteriorating international context, there is a dialogue in the “1+1” format – between the leaders of Tiraspol and Chisinau. The expert believes that “it is impossible to engage in the Transnistrian settlement process without being an optimist.”
Professor of international security at the University of Birmingham Stefan Wolf stated that, despite the fact that socio-economic issues are being resolved, “a political settlement of the conflict has not even begun.” According to Wolf, the process is being delayed, in particular due to the fact that the guarantor countries Russia and Ukraine do not get along with each other.
Russian expert, head of the department of international security and foreign policy at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Natalya Kharitonova, also spoke about this.
“The environment for a settlement is unfavorable - there are a lot of questions. In first place, perhaps, is the problem of Ukraine. For the first time in the last 25 years, relations between individual participants in the negotiations - the mediators - are much worse than between the parties to the conflict - Moldova and Transnistria. This is an unprecedented situation,” Kharitonova said. She believes that the negotiation format needs to be adjusted, but there is no alternative yet.
Transnistrian expert, former head of the Transnistrian Foreign Ministry, former chief negotiator from Tiraspol Valery Litskaya poured a tub of cold water on his colleagues. After listening to “representatives of the great powers” at the conference, he reminded them that “it is easier to be rich and healthy than to be small and poor.” Litskai compared Russia and the United States with two satellites that “fly in high orbits” and see Moldova from above – “green meadows, birds.” “But this is not just a meadow, this is a swamp. And woe to anyone who rolls through this swamp,” he said.
Continuing his figurative speech, Litskai said that “the Moldavian plane, which has a left wing, a right wing, finally crashed on the runway, went crazy,” and from this “many decorations that had been hanging for many years fell down.” “People still walk among these decorations, trying to sort through them, but they have already turned sour.” For example, political representatives of the parties (negotiators from Chisinau and Tiraspol - editor's note), who have not decided anything for a long time. A new reality has emerged. We have oligopolies - they manifest themselves clearly and clearly,” Litskaya explained.
According to him, “one oligarch in Transnistria, the other in Moldova, decided to decide something among themselves,” while “they do not proceed from international law, from international precedents - they have their own approach, very pragmatic.”
“Symbiosis - everyone lives their own life, and together they form a super system that guarantees both a comfortable existence. They began to act, and there are already results of their joint actions in politics. Who solved the problem with the bridge? Not prime ministers or politicians. They decided it, but they took everything under the belt, and the bridge, which had not worked for decades, began to operate,” said the ex-diplomat.
He emphasized that after the elections, a “new reality: structural and political” emerged in Moldova.
“There is a new reality in the negotiation process. We'll see how they (the oligarchs) come to an agreement among themselves. What should great powers do? Talk to them, find out what they want. I heard that some prominent representatives of the parties are already making some initial contacts with them. We must proceed from this, and put aside the old decorations,” Valery Litskay is sure.
With this “new reality,” the expert says, “diplomats will be in the background,” and the importance of geopolitical vectors will disappear.
“Eastern vector, Western vector - the vectors remain, but the essence has disappeared. Ukraine – these are the vectors, there is a struggle there, and Moldova is no longer an outpost of the geopolitical struggle, so small forces are now being thrown here – both from the West and from the East,” the expert said.
He added that the oligopoly is becoming “a state-forming system on both banks of the Dniester - just like the CPSU once was.” “As soon as the oligopoly is destroyed, the state will completely collapse. In Transnistria it’s one hundred percent,” believes Litskaya.
Moldovan expert, ex-adviser to the President of Moldova, former member of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova Mark Tkachuk called the existing systems of power on the two banks of the Dniester “sovereign oligarchies.”
“The most important source of legitimacy for both oligarchies is mutual recognition of each other in terms of pragmatic compliance with financial interests and joint exploitation of existing resources: energy, raw materials, legal, power,” he said.
Tkachuk did not rule out that this “binary platform is in many ways convenient for implementing reintegration scenarios.” “It is clear that this type of reintegration may have supporters. And quite authoritative. Only one thing is clear: such a structure shows its systemic vulnerability, since it is based on the interests of two people, and not on the integration of society on the two banks of the Dniester,” Tkachuk noted.
He believes that the real settlement is a new social policy oriented towards the development of society; a new economic policy based on the creation of new technologies and attracting highly qualified labor; a new cultural policy based on the understanding that linguistic and ethno-cultural diversity is not a problem, but a resource for growth.
“This is the resolution of the Transnistrian issue in the current conditions. And this agenda can no longer be implemented from the top of the existing power pyramids. It can only start from the bottom, from the base, from the base,” he concluded.
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