It is now the right moment to raise again the issue of withdrawal of the Russian troops from Transnistria following the crisis in Crimea. It is now one of the most suitable moments to maximally benefit from the support of the international community, Hanna Shelest, Senior Researcher of the Odessa Branch of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an interview for IPN.
The expert said the situated created in Ukraine has direct and indirect influence on Moldova. Indirect influence started to be exerted immediately after the Vilnius Summit, where Moldova and Georgia initialled the association agreements with the EU. Hanna Shelest considers the EU needs a positive example as regards its Eastern Partnership policy and thus hastened the procedures for signing the Association Agreement and granting a liberalized visa regime.
As to the situation in Moldova, the expert underlined the necessity of drawing some conclusions as regards the Russian-language speaking population so as to prevent tense rhetoric or some not well-planned steps from leading to another zone of ‘protection of the Russian-language speakers’. Hanna Shelest said special attention should be devoted to Transnistria and Gagauzia as the situation in these regions can be destabilized, not necessarily by the same methods as in Crimea.
According to the Ukrainian expert, the situation in Ukraine shows how unsafe the international agreements of which it is a party are as some of the signatories, like Russia, do not obey them. “Moldova has the status of neutrality, but is it enough? Ukraine also signed the Budapest Memorandum as a guarantee of its security, but not all the signatories take it serious, as it turned out,” stated Hanna Shelest.
The expert considers that Moldova and Ukraine should think about alternative collective security mechanisms, possibly within GUAM and within a bilateral Moldovan-Ukrainian format. There may be other variants too, but common military drills will be appropriate.
Ukraine is facing a regional crisis in the Crimean peninsular, which decided to declare its independence after the power in Kiev was ousted. The referendum on joining Russia, which is disputed by the Ukrainian authorities and most of the international players, was held amid massive military presence, including Russian.
