The shadowy existence of Transnistria
Wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, it is home to more than 555,000 people and has a parliamentary government, a standing army, and its own currency.
It controls a narrow strip of territory to the east of the Dniester River, and also the city of Bender and its surrounding localities on the west bank.
The largest ethnic groups are Romanian-speaking Moldovans, at 33 per cent, Russians at 34 per cent, and Ukrainians at 27 per cent. So Slavs outnumber ethnic Romanians by two to one.
The de facto state of Transnistria, as it calls itself, has all the trappings of an independent nation, but isn’t recognized as such by most of the world. As the Soviet Union started to implode in 1990, its constituent union republics sought independence within their Soviet borders. But this would leave many minorities in those republics at the mercy of the majorities in the newly-formed independent states. Hence, separatist movements sprang up among minorities trying to themselves secede from the seceding states. One such case, in the southwestern corner of the old USSR, involved Moldova. In this case, Russian and Ukrainian minorities in the new state feared that the majority Romanians in Moldova might decide to join neighbouring Romania.
Hence the formation of Transnistria, a reaction to the lack of self-determination guarantees in case Chisinau decided on this move. Before 1940, in fact, the Romanian-majority part of Moldova had itself been part of Romania.
Reacting to Moldova’s declaration of independence, the Transnistrian Supreme Soviet voted to establish its own state. Naturally, Moldova resisted this.
The subsequent military conflict of 1990-1992 resulted from Moldova’s attempt to achieve territorial control over the breakaway region, and this in turn provoked the Russian 14th Army to intervene “for the sake of Russophones rights in selfdetermination.”
The 1992 ceasefire agreement included the establishment of a Joint Control Commission to supervise security arrangements in a demilitarized zone consisting of 20 towns on both sides of the Dnieper River.
Transnistria bases its existence as a nation on its separate history and distinctiveness from Moldova.
Its leaders point to the fact that the old Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) had consisted of two parts - the one, known as Bessarabia, that was part of Romania in the 19191940 interwar period, and the other, the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova, that was created in 1924 within Ukraine.
According to the Transnistrian view, the MSSR was dissolved by both of its two parts, Moldova and Transnistria. This was not an act of secession. Transnistrian independence was declared through referenda in 1990-91, the adoption of its constitution in a referendum in 1995, and at a second referendum re-affirming self-determination and free association with Russia in 2006.
Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, features monuments to Vladimir Lenin. Russian flags flying above Transnistrian government buildings.
The Transnistrian ruble bears the images of Russian figures like General Alexander Suvorov and Catherine the Great. Everything from Russian food to medicine and fuel reaches Transnistria through Ukraine. But Kyiv, on May 20, imposed a temporary blockade on Transnistria.
But Moldova itself is to some extent at the mercy of Moscow. For example, its electricity is produced at a plant in Transnistria. However, Transnistria does not pay for the gas it receives from Russia’s state-owned Gazprom to fuel the power plant; rather, Gazprom charges Moldova for those gas deliveries. So, though Moldova’s independence was at first considered a step towards the reunification with Romania by the Bucharest government, this hasn’t happened. Moldovan politicians are themselves divided between those who look to the West and those oriented toward Moscow. In November 2016, Moldova elected a pro-Moscow candidate, Igor Dodon, to the country’s presidency.
Meanwhile, efforts on ending the Moldovan-Transnistrian impasse have made little headway, though talks in Vienna in late November, which included the participation of Russia, Ukraine, the United States, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, made some progress.
“Despite Transnistria declaring its own independence, it will not achieve it, unless Moldova decides to recognize it,” according to Thomas de Waal, a British expert on Eastern Europe. “The most likely future is either more of the same - an unrecognized status and shadowy semi-statehood, or a confederation agreement with Moldova.”