Tiraspol once again asked Chisinau not to poke its nose into the affairs of Russia and Transnistria
The fate of military warehouses in Kolbasna is an internal matter between Russia and Transnistria; the Moldovan authorities have no reason to interfere in resolving the issue of the fate of army arsenals.
The President of Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky, stated this at a press conference in Tiraspol, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I want to focus on one thing: reducing the quantity and disposal of ammunition is an internal matter of Pridnestrovie and the Russian Federation. If some Moldovan politicians want to speculate on this topic, they are doing a useless thing. I don’t see their participation here at all. I say again - this is an internal matter of Pridnestrovie and the Russian Federation. As we decide, so it will be,” the head of state said.
He explained why the issue of warehouses in Kolbasna was raised during the recent visit of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Pridnestrovie.
“Let me remind you how this warehouse was created, why there is such a massive accumulation of ammunition there today. In fact, these are not Russian, but Soviet ammunition, which were exported from Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, and it was decided not to transport them far, but to store them here. There is ammunition there that has long since expired—thirty, fifty, and sixty years ago. Arsenals such as heavy aircraft bombs and other equipment make absolutely no sense and are even dangerous to store in the current conditions.
Sergei Kuzhugetovich made a proposal to support him in terms of conducting an audit and destroying the corresponding arsenal, which is dangerous to store and there is no point in keeping it on the territory of our republic. How can you say “no” here? As we see in the examples of Russia and Ukraine, warehouses have the ability to explode and become unusable. Common sense dictates that something needs to be done about this.
Of course, I asked Sergei Kuzhugetovich a number of questions on this topic, including about compliance with environmental and technological safety. Warheads such as aircraft bombs must be disposed of under certain conditions. Now this is just a stated desire. To achieve implementation, we need to go a certain way and conclude the necessary intergovernmental agreements,” Krasnoselsky noted.
Let us recall that following the recent visit of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Chisinau, Moldovan President Igor Dodon stated that the Russian side is ready to provide equipment for ammunition disposal and discuss this issue at negotiations in which Transnistria, Moldova, OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, the USA and the European Union participate.
However, Transnistrian Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatiev called Dodon’s words “speculation.”
“This topic of the peacekeeping operation, as well as the military aspects, have nothing to do with the negotiation process in the 5+2 format. These speculations are obvious to all participants in the process. Historically, we do not discuss such issues in this format, and the Moldovan side is well aware of this. These issues are not on the agenda of the permanent meeting of the standing meeting. I think they won’t appear,” Ignatiev said.
The situation around the warehouses in Kolbasna has been escalating since 2014, when the Moldovan authorities began supporting the pro-Maidan regime of Ukraine. The network is leaking information about RDX bombs, the equivalent of nuclear weapons.
For their part, the PMR authorities consistently state that as long as the warehouses are under the protection of the Russian military, they do not pose any danger either to the population of Transnistria or to the residents of neighboring Moldova and Ukraine.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.