“Near the village of Voronkovo, in the Rybnitsa region, in the vicinity of the former airport, there were 4 explosions,” the Transnistrian Interior Ministry said via Telegram.
Recently, several incidents were carried out in the region, including shootings near a weapons depot and a series of explosions, which raised fears of an extension of the current conflict in Ukraine.
Those bombings raise a debate about who is behind them, is it Russia or Ukraine, while Moscow accuses the Ukrainian intelligence of carrying them out, Kyiv says that Russia is seeking to “destabilize” Transnistria with the aim of justifying a military operation against Moldova.
Ukraine’s involvement hypothesis
What added to the controversy was the statements of Alexei Aristovich, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, that his country was able to seize Transnistria if the Moldovan side requested it.
On the Russian side, Russian General Rustam Minkayev replied, “Moscow is seeking to create a corridor through southern Ukraine to Transnistria, which is witnessing persecution of the Russian-speaking population.”
Following these conversations, there were 3 armed attacks in the area, which he describes as “Putin’s back garden” as a former Soviet area, on Monday, in addition to the 4 new bombings, and Transnistria President Vadim Krasnoselsky accused “Ukraine of masterminding these attacks, with the aim of dragging Transnistria into the conflict.”
He called on Kyiv to investigate the facts of “the illegal movement of some armed groups and their execution of terrorist acts” in the territory of the breakaway region.
Regarding the hypothesis that the Ukrainian intelligence carried out these attacks, an expert at the International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Studies, Vladimir Proter, says: “I think this is the work of the Ukrainian intelligence, it is important that this happened after the visit of the American guests, and the ultimate goal is to provoke Russia into a sharp reaction, and find out how Will you respond?”
He adds that “Moldova is watching this crisis, because it knows that it should not interfere, and it will do what the West orders it to do,” according to the Russian “Sputnik” agency.
As for political analyst Igor Chornikov, he says that the escalation in Transnistria will become a catalyst for decisive action by Romania, with which Moldovan President Maya Sandu calls for rapprochement.
And he added, in press statements, that “if the Romanian forces appeared in Moldova, they would not leave anywhere,” adding: “I am afraid that this will incite Romania’s occupation of Moldova.”
Russia messages
Transnistria, a border strip extending along Moldova’s border with Ukraine, with a population of about 500,000 people, borders Ukraine from the southwest direction, and borders the Dniester.
It also declared its independence unilaterally, which is not recognized by the international community, and was within the territory of Moldova, the small country in Eastern Europe, located between Ukraine and Romania.
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a brief civil war in the early 1990s between the Republic of Moldova and the separatists in Transnistria, who wanted to preserve Soviet relations.
Political analyst Viktor Barlikov says that the region’s roots go back to the 1920s, when the Soviet Union established a small republic in the same region, before incorporating parts of it into the Republic of Moldova during World War II.
Regarding the hypothesis of Russia launching these attacks, he says: “Russia has a plan to reshape the borders of the Soviet-era republics, and in Transnistria and the Donbas region, a separatist rebellion backed by Russia,” according to the newspaper.
As for political analyst Anton Vladimir, he says that Russia’s quest to establish a geographic link with Transnistria has been present in the Russian discourse since the 1990s, because Moscow seeks to maintain pockets of influence in Eastern Europe, and wants to block the way for the former Soviet republics to join Europe.
He added to “Sky News Arabia” that “Moscow continues to support Transnistria with free natural gas and has 1,500 Russian troops, following its war with Moldova and Transnistria.”
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