Russia is responsible for the situation in the Transnistrian region since, according to the ECHR’s decision, Moscow has military, economic, social and political control over the region, former Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Gheorghe Balan stated in a debate centering on frozen conflicts. According to him, the 5+2 negotiation format is non-functional and was meant only to imitate the identification of a solution to the Transnistrian conflict.
The ex-Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration said that Russia has levers to maintain control over the Transnistrian region, and the 5+2 negotiation format is blocked. According to the initial agreements, the 5+2 format includes Chisinau and Tiraspol as parties involved in the conflict. The OSCE, the Russian Federation and Ukraine have the status of mediators, while the European Union and the US serve as observers.
“The 5+2 format is not functional because each participant in the negotiation process has the right of veto. That is, anyone can block the negotiations. Any decision must be made only by consensus, which is very complicated. Apart from this instrument, Russia has other instruments in the Transnistrian region. These are the Joint Control Commission and the contingent of peacekeepers, which includes armed forces of the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation and paramilitary forces of the Transnistrian region. There were also observers from Ukraine, whom Ukraine withdrew once the full-scale war began. How do Russian peacekeepers differ from other peacekeepers? The purpose of this contingent of peacekeepers was to freeze the conflict and keep the territory under control. Even the ECHR’s decision confirms that the Russian Federation controls the situation in the Transnistrian region economically, socially, politically and militarily. This means that Russia is responsible for everything that happens there,” said Gheorghe Bălan.
He also said that Russia, through frozen conflicts, wanted to keep the Republic of Moldova and Georgia in a state of economic regression, thus keeping the two republics in its sphere of influence.
“Russia’s goal has never been the Transnistrian region. Just as Abkhazia and Ossetia are not Russia’s main goal either. The goal is to keep the former Soviet republics, Georgia, Moldova, in a state of underdevelopment. They wanted to stop the reforms, to keep these republics in the Russian sphere of influence. All these elements did not allow us to identify a solution to the Transnistrian conflict, and the 5+2 format only imitated dialogue, but without real possibilities to find a real solution. That is, the decision could have been taken elsewhere, and the 5+2 format only had to legalize it. We see that all the negotiation formats only imitated the negotiations, in particular, in Moldova and Georgia. We were obliged to conduct negotiations with the representatives of the Transnistrian region. In the case of Ukraine, Kiev refused to sit at the negotiating table with the representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk because the Russian Federation is behind these entities. So, negotiations must be conducted directly with Russia,” explained Gheorghe Bălan.
According to him, the large-scale war in Ukraine broke out because the new Kiev authorities intended to integrate the country into the European Union, which Russia perceived as a loss of influence over this territory.
“Ukraine, when it was put at the negotiating table with the representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk, wanted to create a format in which everything would be transformed into a frozen conflict and the situation would be kept that way. The change of power in Ukraine led to the outbreak of full-scale war. The European integration became a development course in Ukraine and Russia understood that it is losing control,” said the former Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration.
The public debate entitled “Curse of Frozen Conflicts and their Solutions” was the 312th installment the project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates”, which is implemented by IPN News Agency with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
