{"id":16214,"date":"2024-02-29T00:46:50","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T00:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/29\/a-breakaway-region-in-europe-is-asking-russia-for-protection-heres-what-to-know\/"},"modified":"2024-02-29T00:46:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T00:46:50","slug":"a-breakaway-region-in-europe-is-asking-russia-for-protection-heres-what-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/29\/a-breakaway-region-in-europe-is-asking-russia-for-protection-heres-what-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"A breakaway region in Europe is asking Russia for protection. Here\u2019s what to know"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pro-Russian rebels in a separatist sliver of Moldova have asked President Vladimir Putin to protect their region from what they claim are threats from Moldova\u2019s government. <\/p>\n

Transnistria, which illegally split from Moldova as the Soviet Union crumbled, has remained firmly within the Kremlin\u2019s orbit while Moldova, which borders Ukraine, is bidding to join the European Union. <\/p>\n

In a special congress on Wednesday, politicians in Transnistria asked Moscow to guard it from \u201cincreasing pressure from Moldova,\u201d and the Kremlin later said protecting its \u201ccompatriots\u201d was a priority, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported. <\/p>\n

While the congress initially sparked fears that Moscow could press ahead with its longstanding plan to destabilize Moldova\u2019s increasingly pro-Western government, Moldova dismissed it as \u201cpropaganda.\u201d <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know. <\/p>\n

What happened in Transnistria?<\/h2>\n

Meetings of Transnistria\u2019s Congress of Deputies, a Soviet-era decision-making model, are rare but often significant. A Congress of Deputies gave birth to Transnistria in 1990, sparking a war between the Moscow-backed separatists and the fledgling Moldovan republic two years later. <\/p>\n

No country officially recognizes Transnistria, where Russia has kept a steadily dwindling military presence for decades, now standing at around 1,500 troops. <\/p>\n

Before Wednesday, the congress\u2019 most recent meeting was in 2006, when it passed a referendum calling to join Russia.\u00a0When Transnistrian politicians unexpectedly announced a new meeting, analysts suggested this could lead to fresh calls for unification with Russia. Moldovan and Ukrainian officials downplayed this speculation. <\/p>\n

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The congress stopped short of this extreme outcome, instead passing a resolution appealing to Russia to provide more than 220,000 Russian nationals in Transnistria with greater \u201cprotection\u201d from Moldovan authorities. <\/p>\n

\u201cTransnistria will persistently fight for its identity, the rights and interests of the Transnistrian people and will not give up on protecting them, despite any blackmail or external pressure,\u201d the resolution said, according to Russian state media TASS. <\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry said \u201cprotecting the interests of the inhabitants of Transnistria, our compatriots, is one of the priorities.\u201d <\/p>\n

Moldovan authorities dismissed the congress as an attempt to stoke \u201chysteria.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no dangers of escalation and destabilization of the situation in this region of our country,\u201d spokesperson Daniel Voda wrote on Telegram. \u201cWhat is happening in Tiraspol [the region\u2019s capital] is a propaganda event.\u201d <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday that the United States is \u201cwatching Russia\u2019s actions in Transnistria and the broader situation there very closely.\u201d <\/p>\n

Why hold a congress now?<\/h2>\n

Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine has had a profound effect on Transnistria\u2019s economy. Ukraine closed its border with Transnistria when the war began, cutting off about a quarter of the enclave\u2019s trade. While it still receives Russian gas free of charge, the agreement to allow gas transit through Ukraine will expire in December, and there is no guarantee the agreement will be extended. <\/p>\n

The war also spurred Moldova to try to resolve its decades-long conflict with Transnistria. Partly in response to the war, the EU granted Moldova candidate status in June 2022, and in December 2023 gave the green light to begin accession negotiations. <\/p>\n

While Moldova\u2019s President Maia Sandu indicated she would be willing to join the EU without Transnistria, reunification may streamline the process. A recent blog for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argued that \u201cMoldova\u2019s strategy is to hurry the process along by making life as difficult as possible\u201d for Transnistria. <\/p>\n

In this vein, Moldova unexpectedly scrapped customs duty reliefs for Transnistrian businesses in January, forcing them to pay levies to both Transnistria and Moldova. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy offering the separatist region tax exemptions, the Moldovan government had been practically funding the existence of a separatist regime in Tiraspol,\u201d Minzarari said \u2013 an arrangement the government no longer felt it had to tolerate. <\/p>\n

Minzarari said the dispute had created opportunities for Russian authorities to \u201cfish in troubled waters.\u201d <\/p>\n

Why is Russia interested in Moldova?<\/h2>\n

If Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine had gone as planned, it would have captured the capital Kyiv in days and the rest of the country in weeks, sweeping across Ukraine\u2019s coastline to the southwestern city of Odesa near Transnistria. <\/p>\n

The then-commander of Russia\u2019s Central Military Region, Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekaev, said one aim of the so-called \u201cspecial military operation\u201d was to establish a corridor through southern Ukraine to Transnistria, as Russia seeks to reunite with its \u201ccompatriots abroad.\u201d <\/p>\n

Although Ukraine halted Moscow\u2019s progress at Kherson, around\u00a0350 kilometers (220 miles) from Transnistria, analysts have stressed that Russia has retained designs on Moldova. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kremlin seeks to use Transnistria as a Russian-controlled proxy that it can use to derail Moldova\u2019s EU accession process, among other things,\u201d the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, warned in a report last week. <\/p>\n

Putin justified Russia\u2019s 2014 annexation of Crimea and military operations in Donetsk and Luhansk as an effort to protect Russian-speaking citizens in eastern Ukraine, whom he alleged were under threat from Kyiv. <\/p>\n

Minzarari said there were \u201cstrong parallels\u201d between that rhetoric and the sort used recently by the Transnistrian government. In an interview with RIA Novosti, President Vadim Kranoselsky claimed that the Moldovan government was preparing to carry out terror attacks against Transnistria ahead of a possible invasion, without providing evidence. <\/p>\n

However, other analysts argue that, rather than underscoring Russia\u2019s influence on the region, the situation in Transnistria is instead a reminder of how Moscow has so far failed to achieve its key war aims. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pro-Russian rebels in a separatist sliver of Moldova have asked President Vladimir Putin to protect their region from what they claim are threats from Moldova\u2019s government. Transnistria, which illegally split from Moldova as the Soviet Union crumbled, has remained firmly within the Kremlin\u2019s orbit while Moldova, which borders Ukraine, is bidding to join the European <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}