President Igor Dodon was again in Moscow. This time he delivered a speech of almost half an hour in the State Duma of Russia. The authors of a new Sic! article said that after the standard discussion about the historical friendship between our countries, the President reached the contemporary period. Igor Dodon spoke about Transnistria and thanked Russia for what it did to maintain peace on the Nistru. He expressed his conviction that Russia will help Moldova to develop as an independent, sovereign and territorially integral state and then enumerated the results achieved by the Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria, IPN reports.
In his speech in Moscow, Igor Dodon said the main results of the peacekeeping operation during the past 26 years were the following: restoration of a peaceful atmosphere; creation of conditions for the political negotiation process; prevention of any crisis that could lead to the use of weapons between the sides involved in the conflict. Consequently, no matter how harsh the critics in the country and abroad are, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova know for sure that peace on the Nistru was restored owing to the current peacekeeping operation.
The Sic! authors noted the actions taken by the Russian army and officials weren’t at all impartial and helped the separatist regime. The direct involvement of the Russian troops against Chisinau inclined the war balance in favor of Tiraspol and there was obtained a peace that meant the de facto independence of Transnistria from Moldova. From this perspective, President Dodon has an at least strange view on what the territorial integrity of the country meant.
Technically speaking, the President is right: even if the peace was favorable to Tiraspol, the intervention by the Russian army brought the conflict to an end. Moldova, which only formed its own army, was unable to cope with the Russian troops. Beyond politics, the stopping of bloodshed was a positive thing. President Dodon mixes up yet peace with territorial integrity: Moldova received the first in exchange for the second.
For someone who should be the guarantor of sovereignty, national independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova, Igor Dodon has a bias in favor of Russia. It is even more serious when he keeps this position not only in such cases as the expulsion of journalists, but also in such important issues as the Transnistrian conflict that directly affects the country’s territorial integrity, the same integrity that he is supposed to guarantee.
The full article in the Romanian can be found here. Sic! is a fact-checking, promise-tracking and explainer project implemented by IPN with support from Soros Foundation Moldova and the Black Sea Trust.
