Russia-Ukraine War geography: Moldova edition
Are you worried about the problem of Gagauzian separatism? Should you be?
Well, Ukraine may have some reason to be. Moldova is the country that borders on Ukraine on Ukraine’s southeast border. (Map: Wikipedia Commons)
The area shown in red is known as Gagauzia.
The area on the left right of the map marked by the broken line is Transnistria, a disputed area of Moldova currently being effectively controlled by Russia.
“Transnistria [aka, Transdniestria] and Gagauzia have always been Moscow's main targets whenever it wanted to muddy the waters in the country [Moldova],” reports Euronews.1
Here is Transdnistria highlighted (Map: Wikipedia Commons):
The Transdnistrian portion of Moldova has been “controlled by pro-Russian separatists since Moldova's civil war in 1992.” 2
[H]undreds of Russian troops guard a vast Soviet-era ammunition depot in Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria.
This depot, these soldiers and this pro-Russian separatist region are under increasing global scrutiny.
In the past few weeks, accusations have flown between Russia, Ukraine and Moldova over alleged plots to destabilise Moldova, and warnings about the potential for conflict to erupt here again.
Moldova's prime minister, Dorin Recean, has said Russian troops should be expelled from the region, amid warnings from President Maia Sandu that Moscow is planning to topple her pro-western government.
Russia, meanwhile, has been talking up the threat of a "false flag" attack by Ukrainian forces - and warned that any attack on its troops in Transnistria would be seen as an attack on Russia itself.
Euronews describes Russian-encouraged political efforts in the Moldovian capital city of Chișinău to weaken the national government, white at the same time “Moscow is waging a massive disinformation campaign in the eastern breakaway region of Transdnistria and the pro-Russian Gagauz Autonomous Territorial Unit in southern Moldova, where it is hoping to stir further trouble.“
If that weren’t messy enough, Türkiye has been trying to cozy up to Gagauzia for several years. Though apparently without a lot of success.3
And:
Western countries are keen on ensuring two things: that a puppet regime loyal to the Kremlin is not installed in Chișinău and, simultaneously, not to have a security breach in the rear of the Ukrainian front.
The West will not allow Russia to reach Romanian and NATO's borders with its troops, as that would complicate the security equation in the Black Sea.
That last comment is a bit cryptic and not elaborated further. Apparently, it refers to the West providing assistance to Ukraine and Moldova to prevent Russian regular forces or militias loyal to Russia in Gagauzia, Transdnistria, or any other part of Moldova.
Moldova was granted candidate status in 2022, allowing it to begin the formal process of joining the European Union. Moldova doesn’t have anything close to the geopolitical significance of Ukraine for either Russia or the US. Still, both the West and Russia are paying attention:
Moldova … has been facing mounting pressure from Moscow since the beginning of its war on Ukraine.
Last month, Moldovan President Maia Sandu revealed the Kremlin’s plans to stage a coup d’état in the country, enclaved between Romania and Ukraine and home to around 2.5 million people.
“The plan included sabotage and militarily trained people disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and taking hostages,” Sandu said.
Sandu’s announcement came just days after a government collapse, following which she nominated a pro-European figure, Dorin Recean, to be prime minister and keep the country on an EU trajectory.4 [my emphasis]
The Carnegie Endowment did a background paper on the breakaway status of Transdnistria, which it called “the most significant potential obstacle to the country’s future prosperity and successful European integration”:
Transnistria [is] a 400 km long, narrow strip of land on the “left [eastern] bank” of the River Dniester/Nistru between Moldova and Ukraine. Though internationally recognized as part of Moldova, Transnistria declared its independence from Chisinau during the breakup of the Soviet Union. Popular sentiment for independence was driven by fears on the part of the region’s residents that Russian-speakers would lose positions of economic privilege and perhaps even basic language rights within an independent Moldova, or that the country might be united with Romania. The brief war that ensued in 1992 ended with a ceasefire mediated by Russia and enforced by Russian military forces. Russian troops remain in Transnistria as part of a trilateral peace-keeping operation under the terms of the July 21, 1992 Moscow Agreement, and to guard the remnants of a massive Soviet-era arsenal at Kobasna.5 [my emphasis]
Anatol Lieven describes the 1992 war as follows:
When the Soviet Union began to collapse in 1990-91, Transdniestria saw the growth of agitation for separation from Moldova, and a return to the separate status that had existed prior to 1940. As with the Russian-speaking population of Crimea, they pointed out that they had never been asked which Soviet republic they wished to belong to.
To judge by my own visits to the region as a British journalist in the 1990s and other surveys, many local residents feared not only ethnic discrimination by Moldovans, but that Moldova might vote to join Romania, at which point the Russian-speaking population of Trandniestria [sic] would become a tiny and powerless minority. These fears were assiduously played upon by the KGB in an effort to block Moldovan independence.
The result was a brief conflict in the first half of 1992 between Moldova and the Transdniestrian separatists (backed by elements of the former Soviet army) that resulted in around 700 dead, and was brought to an end by the intervention of Russian peacekeepers. Since then, a truce has held with very little violence and considerable trade between and through Moldova and Transdniestria.6 [my emphasis]
He also notes, “Transdniestria has not been officially recognised by any other state (including Russia), but has survived from a mixture of semi-legal trade and Russian subsidies (including free gas which continues to flow through Ukraine, paradoxically enough).“
And, for future reference, he argues that for Moldova or Ukraine to take the opportunity to solve the secession problem or to remove the Russian troops there would carry significant downside risks, not least of which is how it might affect Georgia’s calculations in dealing with its own small breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are recognized by Russia as independent republics (though by nobody else).
We’ll be hearing more about Moldova and Transdnistrian and maybe Gagauzia, too, as the Russia-Ukraine War continues.
(As pleasant as it might be for the issues around national identity in the post-Soviet areas to be clear-cut in at least a formal legal sense, we aren’t that lucky. Keiji Sato in 2014 provided an analysis of one key aspect of the negotiations over the status of Moldova, which is the legacy of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939.7 )
Most of us geography-challenged Americans probably imagine places like Moldova, Transdnistrian, and Gagauzia to be something like Latveria, the mythical kingdom vaguely located somewhere in Europe ruled by Marvel super-villain Dr. Doom. But those places were all around long before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby conjured Latveria into existence in 1964.
But unlike 1964, today we can see even Gaugaziam pop music on YouTube!8
Necsutu, Madalin (2023): Moldova is resisting Moscow's maskirovka. Can the Western security shield protect it? Euronews 03/08/2023. <https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/08/moldova-is-resisting-moscows-maskirovka-can-the-western-security-shield-protect-it> (Accessed: 2023-10-03).
Lucy Williamson, Lucy (2023): Ukraine war: The Moldovan enclave surrounded by pro-Russian forces. BBC News 03/05/2023. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64824517> (Accessed: 2023-10-03).
Konzett, Eva (2023): Twitter 03/09/2023. (Accessed: 2023-10-03).
Camut, Nicolas (2023): Russia and ‘fugitive oligarchs’ pile pressure on Moldova, top minister says Politico EU 03/10/2023. <https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-oligarch-pressure-moldova-ana-revenco/> (Accessed: 2023-10-03).
Rojansky, Matthew (2011): Prospects for Unfreezing Moldova's Frozen Conflict in Transnistria. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 06/14/2011. <https://carnegieendowment.org/files/Rojansky_Transnistria_Briefing.pdf> (Accessed 2023-10-03).
Lieven, Anatol (2023): A looming crisis in Moldova’s breakaway state. Responsible Statecraft 03/07/2023. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/03/07/a-looming-crisis-in-moldovas-breakaway-state/> (Accessed 2023-10-03).
Sato, Keiji (2014): Acknowledgement of the Secret Protocol of the German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact and the Declaration of State Sovereignty by the Union Republics of the USSR. Europe-Asia Studies 66:7, 1146-1164. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/24533944> (Accessed: 203-04-03).
MANJUL - KIZ TOPLARMIŞ. Vitalii Manjul YouTube channel 07/30/2018. (Accessed: 2023-11-03).