The leader of the breakaway republic of Transnistria Igor Smirnov said the Transnistrian region needs more Russian peacekeepers given that Acting President Mihai Ghimpu decided to award the Order of the Republic to a group of Tiraspol political detainees headed by Ilie Ilascu, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the publication “Komsomoliskaia pravda”. Earlier, Igor Smirnov said that Tiraspol agrees to the dispatching of any Russian military force to Transnistria. He stressed he supports the initiative to base Iskander rockets in the region in response to the location of the U.S. anti-rocket system in Romanian and Bulgaria. On August 2, Mihai Ghimpu issued a decree to confer the Order of the Republic on a group of political prisoners held in Tiraspol after the Nistru war of 1992. The supporters of the separatist regime accused Mihai Ghimpu of decorating terrorists who caused suffering to the Transnistrian people.