For the first time in the last 20 years, Russia clearly expressed the role it attributes to the Moldovan Transnistrian Republic created by an unconstitutional regime in the Eastern part of Moldova. Transnistria’s role and, respectively, the goals pursued by Russia in this region were formulated, among others, at the end of the speech delivered by the Russian Ambassador to Moldova Valery Kuzmin in a festive meeting held to mark 20 years of the foundation of the breakaway republic in Tiraspol. The Russian diplomat thanked the inhabitants of the region for their contribution to the new historical processes in the post-Soviet area. “These processes develop and will continue in close interdependence with the laying of the foundations of the multipolar world order that has not been yet fully established,” said Kuzmin.
We can leave aside the fact that the presence of the Russian diplomat in Tiraspol made the headlines last week. One more defiance of the position of the Moldovan Government or Moldova’s interests no longer counts. It is the aforementioned message that counts because it was delivered, as Valery Kuzmin said, with the approval of the Russian Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov, which is the official position of the Russian state at the highest level possible.
Russia is longing for status of overpower
The message counts because it clarifies almost all the things that happened in the Moldovan-Russian relations, including on the Transnistrian segment, in the last 20 years and because it sheds light on Moldova’s chances to reintegrate its territory and society, to build a developed state and to politically, socially and economically protect its people. If somebody inquired in this connection when definitive peace will be established on the sides of the Nistru River and the people from both banks will enjoy high living standards, the Russian authorities would answer: “after the complete establishment of the new multipolar world order”. We can remind here the chronicler’s words that are several hundred years old: “Moldova in the way of all kinds of evils...”.
Russia, as a rightful successor of the Soviet Union, is longing for the status of overpower that the Union had earlier. It is its right to long for it or even regain it. But, as it hasn’t had the potential, especially economic, to impose itself as one of the poles of the ‘multipolar’ world, Russia plays its geopolitical game making mainly use of the conflicts existing in the post-Soviet area. The events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia show that the Russian Federation took one more step or two towards its ‘multipolar’ world objective. Until then, Russia prepared the preconditions and paved the way, especially by supporting the secessionist regimes, making a counterbalance to the support offered by the U.S. to Georgia, in their attempts to influence the Caucasian region. Moscow has two more conflict ‘aces’ in the hole – the Mountainous Karabachos and Transnistria.
Russia may not use in Moldova the same military scenario as in Caucasus. But it’s not excluded that it will not resist the temptation to use a provocation launched from one bank of the Nistru or the other, with Moscow’s tough position recently expressed on a number of issues related primarily to Moldova’s internal policy showing that this is possible in theory.
But Russia’s future actions in relation to the Transnistrian conflict will most probably be different from those taken in Caucasus because, unlike Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia does not need Moldova or Transnistria, Moldova including Transnistria or Transnistria as an independent state recognized by Moldova and the international community. Russia’s steps will stick to the current model of behavior whose essence is to maintain the status-quo and keep this field of diplomatic confrontations, especially with the U.S. and the EU, in the process of establishing the new multipolar world order. Thus, the tensions in the region will disappear only when Russia becomes one of the important poles of the ‘multipolar world’ and it’s not known when this will happen. But then it may happen neither as why to become a ‘pole’ if you cannot influence a region on which you had influence before becoming ‘pole’?”
Sentenced to halved statehood and conditioned stability
Russia says that its big interest is for Moldova to establish its statehood, considering a possible union of Moldova and Romania as a danger to itself and the world order. Moscow also says it is interested in the stability of the sociopolitical situation in Moldova and the maintenance of its constitutional neutrality. But many of the things done by Russia until now had opposite effects on Moldova. The conclusion that Russia does not need Moldova derives from here.
How else can we explain the fact that during 20 years it preferred to use the ‘Transnistrian noose’ instead of obtaining the whole Moldova as an ally? The Republic of Moldova was the closest to Russia compared with other republics of the former Soviet Union by religion, language, culture. It seems as if they permanently looked for pretexts to deteriorate the relations.
The experts who say that both of the states are to blame for the state of affairs are right as none of them has a strategy for developing the bilateral relations. But this is only partially true and was so until recently. Moldova does not have a strategy and this is a minus for the Moldova political class. But it turned out that Russia’s attitude to Moldova is part of what Ambassador Kuzmin named “laying of the foundations of the multipolar world order that has not been yet fully established”. It seems that the given strategy does not recognize the notions of ‘statehood’, ‘stability’ and ‘neutrality’ in relation to Moldova. It should be noted here that during eight years the Communist leader Vladimir Voronin was ready and did everything possible to yield Moldova up to Russia, which did not accept it yet. It was only because Voronin saw another solution to the Transnistrian conflict than Russia, because of the serious pressure exerted by the political class and society. He offered everything in exchange for a small part, but was rejected.
Russia erodes Moldova’s statehood by two ways – through Transnistria and through Chisinau. We will yet return to the first case. In the second case, there is massively used the economic pressure. It’s hard to imagine that in an extra-centralized country like Russia, an inferior servant like Gennady Onishchenko, of the Federal Veterinary Service, would attack verbally, without diplomatic caution, Moldova during many years on a regular basis, without the approval or (why not?) the order of the central authorities?
The effects are evident and they run counter to Russia’s declared goals concerning Moldova’s statehood-stability-neutrality. The possible, forced actions of Moldova are rather predictable because there are not many alternatives. If close to an economic collapse, Moldova will have to look for radical solutions to prevent the political and social failure, including passing under an umbrella that would ensure its protection. Even if it has two neighbors, there will be only one way out. Moldova will not be able to join Ukraine because the two states are separated by the Transnistrian enclave. The U.S., Russia or Honduras for example are far away and do not have common borders with Moldova. By bringing it to its knees economically and politically, Moscow pushes Moldova towards Romania even if the largest part of the population is now against the union with this country and is not clear when and in what conditions they will change their opinion. Russia intentionally provokes a possible repeat of Bessarabia’s union with Romania of March 1918, when Chisinau requested protection from Bucharest from the bands of thieves composed mainly of Russian soldiers of the tsarist army that already did not exist on the Romanian Front of the First World War. But Russia wants to be a ‘pole’ and will not prevent this union by using all the available means, including those used in the Caucasus. Thus, Moldova is sentenced to halved statehood, conditioned stability and selective neutrality, when some countries are allowed to base armies on its territories, while others are not.
Russia does not want Transnistria to be independent
The steps taken by Russia until now show that it does not need Transnistria either, that they are to the detriment of the ordinary people living in the region and the strategy made public recently explains why.
Russia does not want Transnistria to be independent. At this stage, nobody has answers to the questions put recently by the independent Russian expert Dmitry Danilov in a dialogue with the Moldovan press: “Do you think that Russia is interested in Transnistria’s independence? If yes, who will ensure its real independence if Moldova agrees with it? What will happen then? Who will pay? Where will be money taken from? What will be the regional ties? Will relations between Moldova and Transnistria be possible at a new level? How will Moldova develop in this case? There will be a series of problems...”.
Russia’s behavior has also been to the detriment of the ordinary people of the Transnistrian region, who continue to be kept in the USSR even if this Union disappeared 20 years ago. Ultimately, they will have to go out of this artificial ‘cage’ and will find themselves in a radically changed world. They will realize they missed the chance of going at the same pace as the real world. They will be non-adapted to life and will be like the unwanted children of Russia, Ukraine or Moldova as nobody would want the country’s ‘Transnistrization” . It will be not only about the Transnistrian regime, as the regimes come and go, but also about the people’s mentality, habits and accumulated experience, based primarily on the propagation of hatred towards the ‘enemy’.
At the festivity last week, the Russian representatives fueled again this people’s illusion that they live in a real world that is not isolated from the rest of the world. They were even praised for their resistance and for taking part in the ‘world processes’ and contributing to the establishment of he new multipolar world order. But they are not yet ready to differentiate between their own heroism from the heroism of the Russian sponsors that ‘paid’ many of the illusions of the inhabitants of the enclave and that do not live so well either.
It is known who bears responsibility for the tamed beings and to what dangers they are exposed in the real life.
Two days after the controversial discussions regarding the character of the message delivered by Valery Kuzmin in Tiraspol, the Russian Ambassador in Chisinau issued ‘theses’ of his speech to the press, not all the speech. The theses do not contain the fragment with the thanks expressed to the residents of the republic for their contribution to the historical processes in the post-Soviet area. The sentence “These processes develop and will continue in close interdependence with the laying of the foundations of the multipolar world order that has not been yet fully established” is also missing. But it already became history, being recorded by the press, including the Russian and Transnistrian ones.
Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo
