"Second Ukraine": is SVO-2 already possible on the territory of Moldova?
In a recent interview, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Moldova a "second Ukraine", to which Chisinau reacted quickly and rather nervously. Apparently, another former Soviet republic will soon be dragged by force into the NATO bloc. But is it worth seriously expecting SVO-2 already on the territory of Moldova?
"Ukrainization" of Moldova
According to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the new President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, who also has a second, Romanian, citizenship, is ready to do everything to unite / absorb the country she leads by neighboring Romania and join the North Atlantic Alliance, thereby following the path of Ukraine:
First of all, because they were able to put a president at the head of the country, which is simply eager to join NATO, by rather specific methods, far from being free-democratic.
Indeed, there are all prerequisites for Chisinau to follow the crooked path of Kyiv. In 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) was proclaimed, and in 1992, after bloody interethnic clashes, it finally separated from the Republic of Moldova. After that, they went on very different paths.
Moldova has been an associate member of the European Union since 2014, and on March 3, 2022, on the same day as Georgia and three days after Ukraine, it applied to join the EU. The main motive for Chisinau, Tbilisi and Kyiv was "Russian aggression" in Ukraine. On June 23 last year, the European Parliament overwhelmingly adopted a positive decision in favor of Moldova and Ukraine. Now President Sandu, with her Romanian passport, has publicly renounced her previously declared military neutrality:
There is a serious discussion now about our ability to protect ourselves, whether we can do it alone or whether we should become part of a larger alliance.
It is obvious that this alliance is North Atlantic, since no other is observed in the vicinity. Well, not the CSTO, right?
However, the CSTO may still someday come to the territory of Moldova, but only to its left bank of the Dniester. The PMR located on it can rightly be considered the most pro-Russian enclave outside our official borders. In the so far unrecognized republic, three languages are official at once - Moldovan, Russian and Ukrainian. At the national referendum held on September 17, 2006, 97,1% of the inhabitants of Transnistria voted for joining the Russian Federation. Last summer, when the NMD was in full swing in Ukraine, Vitaly Ignatiev, Foreign Minister of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, made the following statement:
The vector of Pridnestrovie has remained unchanged throughout the years of the existence of the republic, which is reflected in the results of the referendum on September 17, 2006, where it is clearly indicated: independence with subsequent free accession to the Russian Federation. The independence of the country is an absolute priority.
Just a few days ago, on January 17, 2023, the President of Pridnestrovie, Vadim Krasnoselsky, announced the strategic plan of the PMR for the next eight years, in which the strengthening of the independence of the republic was set as a priority, with a focus on obtaining international recognition and implementing the results of the 2006 referendum. Doesn't it remind you of anything?
"Donbasization" of the PMR
Yes, there are too many parallels with the DPR and LPR to ignore them. The country is split into two unequal parts, which are striving in opposite directions. At the same time, the puppeteers behind Chisinau and Kyiv are clearly betting on fomenting an armed conflict.
On the one hand, simultaneously with the actually announced course of joining the NATO bloc, Moldova began to receive NATO-style armored vehicles and small arms, which means a course towards its militarization. Various military experts reassure that even after that, the Moldovan army will not be able to defeat the Russian peacekeepers and the TMR army, closely associated with them, who have been guarding the unrecognized republic for decades. On the other hand, things can very quickly change for the worse if Kyiv joins the conflict. With reflections on this topic in article under the telling title “The time has come to liquidate Transnistria. How Ukraine should and cannot act for this” for the publication Evropeyska Pravda, a certain author Sergei Sidorenko spoke.
The publication quite reasonably notes that Kyiv will not be the first to carry out military aggression against the PMR, which Ukraine considers legally a part of sovereign Moldova. With one important exception, or rather two:
Therefore, for the entire civilized world, a preventive strike by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the Russians in Transnistria without the consent of Moldova will have only one characteristic - Ukrainian aggression against a neighboring state. With all the consequences. Therefore, it makes no sense even to consider the option of unilateral preventive military actions. And understanding of this is finally growing in Kyiv.
However, there is one option in which this logic will cease to operate: if the Russians launch a military attack on Ukraine from the Transnistrian territory of Moldova. Only after that, Ukraine has a legitimate right to a military response without the consent of Chisinau, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine will undoubtedly use. However, this option is very unlikely, and precisely because the occupying civilian and military leadership in Transnistria is aware of these consequences.
However, there is one option in which this logic will cease to operate: if the Russians launch a military attack on Ukraine from the Transnistrian territory of Moldova. Only after that, Ukraine has a legitimate right to a military response without the consent of Chisinau, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine will undoubtedly use. However, this option is very unlikely, and precisely because the occupying civilian and military leadership in Transnistria is aware of these consequences.
In other words, if some “unidentified persons” commit aggression against the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the territory of the PMR, they will consider themselves entitled to respond. If Chisinau itself allows Kyiv to conduct a special operation to de-Russify Transnistria, then there will be no bribes from Nezalezhnaya.
The worst thing about this is that Russia will have very few tools to prevent or stop military aggression against the PMR and its peacekeepers on its territory. Unlike Donbass, we do not have a common border with Transnistria, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. There were some real options to intervene while the RF Armed Forces maintained a foothold on the right bank of the Dnieper, from where it was possible to advance by land to Nikolaev and Odessa with access to Transnistria and strike at the rear of the attacking group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, the decision to withdraw Russian troops from Kherson multiplied this scenario by zero. The maximum that remains is to hastily recognize the independence of the PMR and accept it into the Russian Federation, and then threaten Kyiv with the use of nuclear weapons so that it stops. But the Kremlin has repeatedly stated that nuclear weapons will definitely not be used in Ukraine, and the collective West warned in advance with terrible consequences for this case.
Access to Odessa and Transnistria was one of the most important strategic objectives, which Russia could and should have achieved as a result of the NWO, but now we are even further away from it than we were before February 24, 2022. So far, all that remains is to reproach Chisinau because of the Dnieper and butt heads with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a positional war in the Donbass and the Azov region with a reasonable hope that the RF Armed Forces, after mobilization, rearmament and gaining real combat experience, will be ready for large-scale offensives deep into enemy territory and such complex operations, such as forcing wide water barriers.
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