Since February 2022, the existence of “breakaway” or separatist regions in Eastern Europe have skyrocketed into mainstream news and political analysis. A full year into the Russian-Ukrainian war has heightened the discussion of what could come post-war for separatist regions and the consequences of those outcomes. This also has implications for the separatist region of Transnistria, located in Ukraine’s neighboring country of Moldova. While recognized only by Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Republic of Artsakh, Transnistria, or the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, has operated as a quasi-state since the government of Moldova designated it as an autonomous territorial unit in 2005. It is crucial to remember that the day when the existence of Transnistria is questioned is imminent. It is not whether this question will be raised, but more so when Transnistria’s existence will be questioned, how it will be questioned, and whether there is an answer to the “problem of Transnistria.”
Before delving into these questions, it must be explained why Transnistria is a “problem.” From a Western perspective, Transnistria is occupied territory. With the war in Ukraine raging, more conversations are being had about the status of separatist regions with a Russian military presence. Increasingly, these areas are being looked at as regions that must be liberated from Russian militarization. In the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “we believe that the territory of Transnistria is the territory of the independent state of Moldova, and they [Russians] are constantly making provocations.” The outcome of the war in Ukraine will have ripple effects globally. As such, from a western democratic perspective, the existence of Transnistria is a problem that will eventually need to be resolved.
In early 2023, it seemed the day of reckoning for Transnistria was on the horizon. On February 9th, President Zelenskyy announced that Ukrainian intelligence had discovered a Russian plot to “destroy” Moldova. Moldova, like Ukraine, has continued to drift further away from Moscow’s sphere of influence after the election of President Maia Sandu in 2020. Since her election, Sandu has been vocal in her belief that Russia should withdraw its military personnel from Transnistria. Early in her presidency, Sandu stated that it was her opinion that there was foreign interference during the dissolution of the Soviet Union which created the Transnistrian conflict to hinder Moldova’s strides towards independence. There has been a Russian military presence in Transnistria since 1992, when the cease-fire agreement between Moldova and Transnistria established the presence of troops as “peacekeepers.” As of today, Transnistria houses approximately 1,500 Russian armed forces personnel, seven Mi-24 attack helicopters, and around 100 armored vehicles. While these numbers may not call for immediate alarm, the presence of Russian military, and the memory of the Transnistrian war in the early 90’s, has been a looming presence since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s announcement of Russia’s plans for Moldova stoked pre-existing concerns over whether Moldova is the next country to be invaded.
As one of the Eastern Bloc’s “frozen” conflicts, Transnistria has remained in stasis since the end of the Transnistrian War in 1992. The region itself is often referred to as a relic of the Soviet Union, complete with a statue of Lenin in front of its parliament building. As a result, Transnistria can be viewed as one of the few remaining areas that is deeply entrenched in the Soviet sphere of influence. Over the years, as tensions and annexations in Eastern Europe have ebbed and flowed, so have concerns over conflict flaring in Transnistria. None of these concerns have resulted in tangible conflicts, but with the war in Ukraine seriously upending the status-quo, there seems a real possibility that Russia may jolt Transnistria out of its liminal state and into conflict.
Skeptics of this argument would claim that Russia will not want to risk angering the West further by instigating violence in a second country. However, one must look back to February 2022 and realize that Russia fully intended to drag Moldova into its invasion of Ukraine. In late January of 2022, it was reported that Russia intended to pursue a false-flag operation in Eastern Ukraine, supposedly to justify what was at the time, a hypothetical invasion. If this plan had worked, it is not unfounded to say that Russian troops could have moved into Ukraine through Transnistria. American officials even went so far as to say that this operation could occur in Transnistria as well as in place of Eastern Ukraine. In March 2022, a photo showed Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in front of a war map wherein there appeared to be Russian troop movement into Transnistria from Odessa. So far, none of these scares have resulted in troop movement or violence in Transnistria- potentially because Russia has yet to formulate a feasible excuse to do so. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is in flagrant violation of international law; Russia has stuck with its claims of “denazifying Ukraine” and “protecting the Russian minority” in Ukraine while also preventing Western encroachment via NATO expansion.
In early 2023, news coming from Russia and Moldova told a story of a frozen conflict thawing out at a concerning rate. After President Zelenskyy’s announcement on February 9th, Russia moved quickly to deny these claims. However, these claims were soon corroborated by President Sandu who announced that Russia’s plans were to use foreign saboteurs to attack government buildings in Chisinau with the goal of creating violence and havoc in the city. Externally, Russia has started to increase the severity of the narrative involving Transnistria. On February 23rd, Russia stated that Ukraine intended to launch an invasion into Transnistria as retaliation for an “alleged” offensive by Russian troops from the territory of Transnistria.” The Russian Defense Ministry alleged that Ukraine was “amassing troops” along Ukraine’s border with Moldova and that this provocation posed a “direct threat to the Russian peacekeeping contingent legally deployed in Transnistria,” which Russia would protect if necessary.
This builds to answer the question of how the existence of Transnistria may be reckoned with. Despite Russia’s leaked plans and thinly veiled threats, as of April 2023, it seems unlikely that Russia has the military capacity or wherewithal to successfully invade Transnistria and/or Moldova. As reported by The Economist in March 2023, Russia has had an estimated 60,000-70,000 fatalities in Ukraine since the start of the invasion in February 2022. Adding the additional soldiers who were wounded or missing brings the total losses to an estimated 200,000-250,000. For perspective, in the early days of the war, it was estimated that approximately 150,000 Russian troops had entered Ukraine. This would mean that approximately a year after the initial invasion, Russia has lost 100% of its initial troops plus anywhere from 50,000-100,000 more. The rate at which Russia is losing troops is also incredibly high; American General Mark Milley said in an interview, that an estimated 1,200 Russian soldiers were killed in a single day around the area of Bakhmut. Russia has also suffered heavy artillery losses, having lost 1,000 tanks with another 544 tanks captured by Ukrainian forces. These losses have accumulated to roughly 30% of Russia’s tank force. Oryx, an open-source monitoring website, calculates total Russian equipment losses at 9,100, while Ukraine’s total losses are estimated to be 2,934.
It could be argued that Moldova does not have the military strength to fend off a potential Russian invasion regardless of Russia’s troop losses. Moldovan Armed Forces only consists of approximately 6,500 personnel with an additional 2,000 yearly conscripts. They also face a modernization issue. In October 2022, Moldovan Defense Minister Anatolie Nosatii said that roughly 90% of Moldova’s military equipment is of Soviet origin, ranging as far back as the 1960’s. However, it would be counter-productive for Russia to send forces to Transnistria when they are facing such significant troop and artillery loss in Ukraine. Doing so would only further strain Russia’s army, diverting it away from Ukraine, and further Western involvement in the conflict.
Now, why must the issue of Transnistria be dealt with? Most simply put- Moldova’s current westward trajectory is fundamentally incompatible with the existence of a Russian-occupied Soviet state.
From the Russian perspective, there is Russia’s russkiy mir and sphere of influence ambitions. Russkiy mir or translated “Russian world” refers to a policy and cultural belief that all Russian speakers globally are part of Russian civilization and therefore must be protected against “persecution.” Unlike Ukraine, which has contended with conflicting claims over Kyivan Rus, Moldova has almost always been considerably distinct from Russia. The Principality of Moldavia was formed in 1346 and existed until 1859 when it formed with Wallachia, the geographical area of modern Romania. Today, the western section of Moldavia is part of Romania, and a portion of the eastern section is now Moldova. The Russian Empire did hold Bessarabia, a section of Moldavian territory in 1812, however it was ceded back in 1856. The native population spoke Romanian, although it was banned in 1836 as part of forced Russification. Stalin also mandated Moldovans to write Romanian in Cyrillic, a process which continued to drive a wedge between Moldova and its cultural ties to its western neighbor. As per the Moldovan 2014 census, (excluding Transnistria,) 4.1% of the population identified as Russian. In Transnistria, 29.1% identified as Russian. In the same census, 90.1% of Moldovans who reported to be religious self-identified as Eastern Orthodox; another key component of russkiy mir. With a respectable Russian minority and a majority Orthodox faith, Moldova, and more specifically Transnistria, have all the makings of a state to be incorporated into the “Russian World” that Putin so desires.
With NATO expansion also being a key player in the Russo-Ukrainian conversation, it can argued that Russia is looking to prevent NATO expansion, and Western influence further eastward. As of 2022, Russia is surrounded by NATO on its western side. Despite Moldova being considerably smaller than Belarus or Ukraine, the “loss” of it to either NATO or the European Union would be antithetical to Russia’s desire to maintain and even expand its sphere of influence. Russkiy mir is even enshrined in Russia’s national security policies. The National Security Strategy outlines the perceived threat to russkiy mir as “the erosion of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values and the weakening of the unity of the Russian Federation’s multinational people by means of external cultural and information expansion (including the spread of poor-quality mass cultural products), propaganda of permissiveness and violence.” Although the population of Transnistria is only 475, 373, it remains of symbolic importance to the Kremlin’s ideas of preserving Russian culture and influence.
From the Moldovan perspective, the shift westward has already begun. The beginning of this change could be felt when Maia Sandu was first elected in 2020. Running on a pro-Western campaign, she won with 57.7% of the vote against Igor Dodon, who was backed by Russia. This was further reinforced with parliamentary election results in 2021. Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) won 63 of 101 seats in Parliament with 58% of the vote. The Party of Action and Solidarity is pro-European, and prior to the invasion of Ukraine had the long-term goal of Moldova’s accession to the European Union. The success of the PAS in the parliamentary elections was broadly considered to be detrimental to Russia’s influence in Moldova.
The invasion of Ukraine has expedited Moldova’s political movement westward. In March, the Moldovan Parliament passed a bill which formally restored Moldova’s national language to Romanian. Although 80% of Moldovans speak Romanian as their native tongue, the official language of Moldova was legally “Moldovan” which remained until March 2023 as a cultural relic of Stalinism. While the linguistic differences between Romanian and Moldovan are negligible, the change in policy represents a substantial distancing of Moldova and its ties to Russia. Other significant policy maneuvers include submitting Moldova’s official application for European Union candidacy in the early days of the Russo-Ukrainian war. As of April, the European Union agreed to accelerate European Union-Moldovan entrance negotiations to take place before the end of 2023.
While Sandu is facing falling approval rates because of high inflation and multiple energy crises; general approval of Moldova joining the European Union remains steady among the Moldovan population. The International Republican Institute’s Center for Insights in Survey Research reported that in November of 2022, 36% of Moldovans were reported to “strongly support” Moldova joining the European Union, and 27% “somewhat supported” this motion. In the municipality of Chisinau, 42% of respondents strongly supported accession, and 37% somewhat supported it. The study also showed that Moldovans believe the European Union is Moldova’s strongest political partner, with Romania placing second and Russia third. In 2019, The European Union and Russia were tied in the IRI’s data on top political partner to Moldova. In 2018, Russia placed higher than the European Union. While Russia remains of political importance in the eyes of Moldova, it clearly has been losing primacy to Moldova’s Western neighbors.
However, the question of whether or not the issue of Transnistria can actually be solved remains.
In October 2017 (the last year that the IRI asked about Transnistria in annual polling,) 70% of Moldovan respondents said that Transnistria should be a regular region in Moldova, without autonomous designation. This is the largest percentage since 2010, with numbers dipping as low as 48% in March 2016. This would indicate that Moldova would like to see Transnistria be reintegrated into Moldova. But what about Transnistria? Unsurprisingly, Transnistria has remained politically inclined towards Russia since its inception. Russia originally backed Transnistria during the civil war and has continuously provided economic support, despite not formally recognizing Transnistria’s statehood. After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Transnistrian officials appealed to the Duma to consider accepting Transnistria into the Russian Federation. Political scientist Antoly Durin, who himself is from Transnistria, said of public opinion, “people here feel Russian. Not just as a nationality, but as a people who love Russia and want to be part of a Russian civilization.” So, while Moldova, (as an entity separate from Transnistria,) does not wish to be part of the Russian world/russkiy mir, Transnistria regards itself as intrinsically Russian.
This creates a scenario wherein the existence of Transnistria diametrically opposes Moldova. This opposition, combined with the economic and militaristic realities of Moldova, Transnistria and Russia means that despite all the posturing and polling numbers, Transnistria may very well remain frozen for the foreseeable future. There are multiple hypotheticals about what could happen, all under different sets of circumstances.
The scenario wherein Transnistria agrees in diplomatic negotiations to be reabsorbed into Moldova is currently too unlikely to be discussed here.
A second possibility is another civil war. Moldova could attempt to use military might to forcibly reunite Transnistria with Moldova. This scenario also seems unlikely. Any military action taken by Moldova that is “unprovoked” would greatly jeopardize Moldova’s foray into the Western European community. There has also been no rhetoric from the Moldovan government that would indicate a desire to utilize military action. In fact, the rhetoric has been the opposite, with Maia Sandu reaffirming her commitment to diplomatic resolution throughout her presidency. With Moldova facing a cost-of-living crisis, and increasing concerns over inflation, avoidable conflict would be highly unpopular. Additionally, Neither Moldova nor Transnistria have the military capacity to engage in unnecessary conflict. If there was conflict between them, Russia would likely get involved to support Transnistria. However, Russian involvement in a conflict would divert resources and attention away from Ukraine, which is of higher importance to Russia.
The third scenario is that an economic collapse in Russia and/or Transnistria would force the dissolution or reintegration of Transnistria and Moldova. Transnistria has a semi-independent economy; however, it remains reliant on Russian support. As with other quasi-states, Russia acts as a “patron” of Transnistria and subsidizes a large portion of the Transnistrian economy. This allows Transnistria’s continued existence despite their lack of international recognition. In February of 2023, a leaked contract between Russian company Gazprom and Moldovan company Moldovagaz unveiled that Transnistria owes roughly 7 billion dollars in gas bills. Russia has continued to supply Transnistria with gas, even though (as of 2019,) Transnistria had not paid for gas since 2009. In Moldova, it costs approximately $1,000 per thousand cubic meters of gas. In Transnistria, the same amount of gas is estimated to cost around $168. Russia also provides millions annually to Transnistria in humanitarian support, which keeps the economy afloat. In the event of a Russian economic collapse, the Transnistrian economy theoretically could collapse as well. If Russia forces Transnistria to repay their gas debt, or can no longer subsidize the Transnistrian economy, the Transnistrian economy could give way. An economic collapse could force Transnistria to reintegrate into Moldova.
However, a Russian economic collapse does not seem to be predicted any time soon. When Russia initially invaded Ukraine, it was predicted that the economy would contract by 10%. A contraction of 10% would have effectively crippled the Russian economy and potentially had rebound effects on the Transnistrian economy. However, heavy western sanctions have only been marginally successful in stifling the Russian economy. In the first 2023 fiscal quarter, the Russian economy contracted by 2.2%. Organizations like the International Monetary Fund are projecting that the Russian economy will recover in the coming year as a result of military production and mass amounts of state spending.
So, what does all of this theorizing accumulate to?
For better or worse, it seems that the situation is too tumultuous to make a long-term prediction. What can be said is that given the paradoxical nature of its existence, Transnistria will be stuck in its interjacent state until it is galvanized by external circumstances. As a quasi-state, it has not made any recent moves to change its status. Despite saying that they wish to join the Russian Federation, Transnistria has not properly attempted to join, nor provided military support to Russia.
In all, the answers to the question of Transnistria can only be found in due time. There is not a singular clear path for the future of Russia, Moldova, or Transnistria. Time will tell how the domino effect of events in Ukraine will play a role in the future of its neighbors. What can be said is that the global community must continue to monitor the situation in Transnistria. One day Transnistria will be called out of its intangible state, and when it is we must all watch with a critical eye.