By Galina Korol and AFP | 2024-03-04

KYIV -- Appeals by a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova are familiar to those who have witnessed past Kremlin pretexts for invasions.

At a rare special session in Tiraspol on February 28, self-proclaimed "lawmakers" of Transnistria asked Russia's parliament to protect their region from allegedly mounting Moldovan pressure.

They cited an "economic war" that included blocking of vital imports.

Moldova's government rejected "propaganda statements" from the separatists, adding that Transnistria "benefits from the policies of peace, security and economic integration with the European Union [EU]."

Moscow responded on the same day. "All requests [for help] are always reviewed carefully by the relevant agencies," a Foreign Ministry source said, according to RIA Novosti.

The Kremlin's various options for responding to Transnistria's plea for "help" all involve destabilizing Moldova, analysts say.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) listed several options the Kremlin might consider.

"The most likely course of action ... is that the Kremlin will use the Congress as a springboard to intensify hybrid operations aimed a destabilizing and further polarizing Moldova," the ISW said, referring to the February 28 special session.

"The most dangerous course of action ... is that the Kremlin may decide to formally annex Transnistria in the future in order to justify military intervention against Moldova in the long-term."

Transnistria is a primarily Russian-speaking region that Russian troops have propped up since 1992.

What kind of help?

The kind of help Transnistria might want remains unclear to analysts.

In the past, the Kremlin used pleas for "help" or "protection" by pro-Moscow clients to justify invasions of Ukraine (2014), the Baltic states (1940), Georgia (2008) and Poland (1939).

"No one knows for sure what kind of help this is supposed to be. ... The appeal was made abstractly, and I think that was deliberate," Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst and director of the Penta Center for Political Studies, told Kontur.

The Transnistria "lawmakers" tellingly did not issue an appeal to join Russia, Fesenko noted.

They recognized that doing so "would be suicide," he said. "Any attempt to open a second front against Ukraine will end very quickly, and Transnistria simply won't exist."

Ukraine borders Transnistria, while Russia does not.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry warned against "any destructive external interference" in Transnistria.

The United States "firmly supports Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity," according to a US State Department spokesman.

"This is another campaign to create hysteria," a Moldovan government spokesman said in a Telegram post.

An unpromising Kremlin tactic

The so-called lawmakers' special session was a "vivid example of extortion by the local elite, who are simply playing the Russian card," said Serhiy Kuzan of Kyiv, a military analyst and chairman of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation.

"This is first and foremost extortion by Transnistria, but it's coordinated with the Kremlin," agreed Fesenko, calling it an attempt to "frighten Moldova ... the West and the EU."

But Transnistria's lack of a shared border with Russia dooms such a strategy to failure.

Since 2014, when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine, Transnistria has depended exclusively on the good graces of Moldova to receive supplies and to rotate its de facto Russian garrison as Ukraine cut off overland access to the Russians.

The roughly 1,500 Russian troops in Transnistria do not pose a danger to Moldova, said Kuzan.

"Their military potential is inadequate. There are depots of Soviet weapons, but depots don't fight -- men fight," he said.

"Ukraine's defense forces physically destroyed Russia's capabilities in the Black Sea. ... the Russians physically lack the capabilities to get troops there," Kuzan told Kontur.

Russians must 'get out'

Transnistria is reacting to the Moldovan battle against corruption, said Fesenko.

"Because of the war [in Ukraine], the sanctions against Russia and Moldova's ramping up of its fight against corruption -- while the majority of the schemes and ways to earn money in Transnistria were tied to smuggling -- Transnistria has now begun to experience major economic problems," he said.

Smugglers and racketeers in Transnistria who feel squeezed "decided to orchestrate this pressure," he added.

Kuzan recalled a 2006 referendum on joining Russia that Transnistria's self-proclaimed government staged.

It passed, dubiously, but nothing came of it.

Transnistria's destabilizing potential will have to be addressed someday, said Kuzan.

"Sooner or later Moldova will need to cooperate with Ukraine, and maybe with Romania, to solve the Transnistria problem," he said. "There won't be any Russian enclaves, no Transnistria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia. Russians need to get out of all those places and go into hiding after they suffer defeat in Ukraine."