Tiraspol says there are no signs of preparations for military action on the borders of Transnistria and assures that it controls the situation. Earlier it was repeatedly reported that personnel and equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces were being deployed to the borders of Transnistria, which may indicate preparations for an invasion. How do the ordinary citizens of Transnistria, where the last combat operations took place 30 years ago, react to this?
Source photo: u.9111s.ru
Tiraspol said on Wednesday there were no signs of preparations for military action in the Transnistrian security zone. According to Oleg Belyakov, co-chairman of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) for Transnistria, the authorities have the situation under control, Interfax reported. A day before, Pridnestrovian President Vadim Krasnoselskyy urged the residents to keep calm and not give in to panic moods.
Meanwhile, Transnistrian peacekeeping forces began a three-month military training camp on Wednesday. They will be open to men up to 55 years of age who are fit for military service. In addition, last week the Russian Defence Ministry said Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria were threatened by a planned provocation by the Ukrainian army and subsequent preparations for an invasion of the DMR.
In particular, the Russian military noticed a significant accumulation of personnel and military equipment of Ukrainian units near the Ukrainian-Transnistrian border. “This action of the Ukrainian armed forces will be carried out in response to an alleged attack by Russian troops from Transnistrian territory,” the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said about a probable provocation by the Ukrainian armed forces on the border with Transnistria using radioactive “California-252”. The representative claimed that containers with the radioactive substance had recently been delivered to Odessa ports. In response, Kiev denied this information by saying that Ukraine “strictly adheres to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons”.
However, Tiraspol took seriously the threat of a possible provocation with the use of radioactive substances. According to RIA Novosti, the republic’s foreign minister, Vitaly Ignatyev, said. “There is no smoke without fire. But it does not mean that the situation is in a critical phase or out of control. To some extent, the focus on these possible problems is aimed at ensuring that these problems do not happen,” Ignatyev said.
Talks about a possible attack by the Ukrainian military on the TMR have increased in the last few days. In particular, Oleksiy Arestovich, a former adviser to the Ukrainian president’s office, has repeatedly spoken about such a scenario. While in April he did not rule out such a possibility, this week he assured that the operation would take only a few days.
According to former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, the seizure of the DMR could take place with the consent of current Moldovan leader Maia Sandu. The Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) have concentrated approximately 4,000-5,000 troops near the borders of Transdniestria and military equipment, including Hummer armoured vehicles with personnel, is also being moved there.
Observers reported on social media about the deployment of artillery to firing positions and an increase in drone flights over DMR territory. Particular attention was paid to reports of the presence of a group of AFU forces near the Ukrainian village of Sahaydak, less than 20 km from the Transnistrian village of Kolbasna, where the main ammunition depots are located.
“The situation around Transnistria is tense. People understand this very well. Over all these years they have got used to different situations and turbulence on the perimeter of their borders, they know how to distinguish when something is brought in from outside and has an artificial nature. We are not threatening anyone and any attempts to attribute something to us are unfounded and lack common sense,” Vladimir Yastrebchak, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria, told VZGLYAD newspaper.
According to him, there are certain fears in the society, but they cannot be called panic. Planned events are taking place in the region and the educational process is going on. Transnistrians are ready to come to the aid of their neighbours. Only since February of last year about 50 thousand residents of Ukraine have registered in the unrecognized republic. All necessary conditions are being created for Ukrainians so that people feel safe, their children go to local schools and kindergartens. “The main thing is not to make it worse. Thirty years ago we experienced first-hand what hostilities were like. Tens of thousands of our fellow citizens were forced to seek refuge in other countries. We are very much counting on common sense to prevail,” he said.
The former leader of the Renewal faction in the supreme soviet of Transnistria, Piotr Pasat, agrees with this assessment. “The mood in the PMR as a whole is alarming. No one can foresee what will happen tomorrow.
We border on unfriendly Moldova and Ukraine. Their negative comments are reinforced by concrete actions, such as the active militarisation of “neutral” Moldova, whose military budget has increased by 50% over the last year. Chisinau is not fulfilling the bilateral agreements signed earlier with Tiraspol, which cannot but stress us,” the interlocutor said.
For his part, the former chairman of the Supreme Council of the PMR, Alexandr Scherba, said that people have a common concern about the future, but there is hope that military actions on the territory of the republic will not start. “Anxiety has become commonplace. The reports from Ukraine no longer affect us as much as they did in the early days of the SAO. If we talk about the attitude of Transnistrians to the Moldovan authorities, it is overwhelmingly negative, because there has always been a one-sided diktat from their side. But we have normal relations at the household level, be it in business or just family relations,” says Shcherba.
At the moment there are no interruptions in gas and electricity supplies, groceries, vegetables and fruit are plentiful, and there is internet and mobile communications. “Businesses are working, education and healthcare systems are functioning properly. This is first of all the merit of the President, the Supreme Council and the government. The people see it and appreciate it. It relieves some of the tension and gives hope for a peaceful future,” Pasat said.
He said the republic remembers well the events of 1992, when many were forced to seek asylum in Ukraine, so the response to Ukrainian refugees is very good indeed – many of them have already been resettled and employed. “We remember and know what it is like to be refugees,” he stressed.
Nevertheless, Transnistria does not rely solely on a peaceful attitude. “We have mechanisms to ensure peace and security, including Russian peacekeepers. Our power structures ensure the protection of facilities and perform other tasks,” Iastrebchak assured. He considers relations with Chisinau to be good-neighbourly. “The border between Moldova and Transnistria is open, the rules of crossing cannot be called prohibitive. Over the past 30 years, a new generation of people has grown up in Moldova, which perceives Transnistria as a good neighbour,” the interlocutor stresses.
“But we would like to actively develop trade with Russia, try to diversify our export-import relations. Unfortunately, we do not have such an opportunity. The situation worsened after Chisinau completely closed the Transdniestrian-Ukrainian section of the border for the movement of goods”, Yastrebchak reminded.
Due to logistics problems, local agricultural products are becoming uncompetitive on the Russian market. The PMR has been deprived of many commodity items in sensitive areas such as pharmaceuticals. “Goods purchased in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine remained in Moldovan customs warehouses. There were also problems with Russian buckwheat. In general, we are not allowed to choose whom to trade with, imposing these or those commodity positions. There is a direct interest of the Moldovan authorities here so that purchases are made by their rules, so that they collect more taxes,” the interlocutor adds.
According to Pasat, goods are imported to the PMR exclusively from the territory of Moldova, which can detain any cargo, not only medicines, but also food products. “We have to turn around all the time, negotiate somehow”, he says.
Shcherba stresses that administrative regulation by Moldova is always a pressure on the PMR, due to which businesses incur additional costs. “But in terms of direct contacts between business entities there are no problems, our shops have Moldovan goods, and Moldovan shops have Transdniestrian goods”, the interlocutor said.
As a result, Transnistrian inhabitants do not have to live fully, but rather to survive. What saves them is having several passports, which “makes it possible not to stay locked up”. “People have to find various ways to cross the borders in the region, the more so that various restrictions are introduced with enviable consistency. But that doesn’t negate the fact that there are about 200,000 Russian citizens living here,” Yastrebchak said.
As Pasat specified, the Transnistrian passport is not recognized anywhere, so people with it are not allowed to travel. In this regard, residents of the DMR have been accepting the citizenship of Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. “We are mainly oriented towards Russia. In the current conflict our sympathies are on the side of Moscow. But many of our relatives are in Moldova, my brother lives in Chisinau. We visit each other all the time, there are no problems with this so far”, assured Pasat.
Andrei Rezchikov, VZGLYAD
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