WSJ: Russia’s Next Target: Moldova
Russia’s Next Target: Moldova
A military drill in another breakaway region—this time in Moldova.
The Wall Street Journal
April 9, 2015
Russian forces on Thursday conducted a drill near Moldova, the small, Kremlin-menaced nation wedged between Ukraine and Romania. According to Russian news agencies, 400 Russian troops participated in exercises in Transnistria, a breakaway territory of Moldova populated by ethnic Russians. They fired 100,000 rounds of ammunition.
Having annexed Crimea and pocketed Western concessions in eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is eyeing the territory stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea that Moscow considers its rightful imperial domain. Mr. Putin is also sending a warning to Moldovans to abandon their dreams of Western integration.
The choice of location for the Red Army’s latest drill is significant. Transnistria—a narrow strip of land on the eastern side of the River Dniester—is sovereign Moldovan territory but is overwhelmingly ethnic Russian. It broke away soon after Moldova declared sovereignty in 1990 amid the Soviet Union’s collapse. No United Nations member-state recognizes Transnistria’s ruling regime.
Two years later Moldova made a failed attempt to retake the territory in a war that killed 1,500 people. Since then, around 1,000 Russian troops have been stationed in the territory, despite Moscow’s promise to redeploy them by 2002.
Cursed with corrupt politics and a labyrinthine parliamentary structure, Moldova remains one of Europe’s poorest countries. Even so, a majority of Moldovan voters have in the past three parliamentary elections opted for liberal, pro-Western governments. The current Prime Minister, Chiril Gaburici, appointed in February, is a pro-Western businessman who wants closer ties to the European Union.
Moscow has already punished Moldovans for seeking closer ties with the West by banning imports of Moldovan wine in 2013 and Moldovan fruit in 2014—each time on bogus health-related pretexts and each time close to Moldovan-EU summits and accords.
Thursday’s military exercises are intended to create the impression Mr. Putin might take more drastic action to subdue the defiant country. It would be nice to suppose that the West’s response to such action would be tougher than what it has so far been in Ukraine. We aren’t counting on it.
Original Link to WSJ Article:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-next-target-1428622753
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