Transnistria: Europe's other Crimea

[steve2470]

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/transnistria-europe-other-crimea-2014313132814552215.html

Tiraspol - As the political crisis in Crimea deepens amid the prospect of the region joining Russia after the looming referendum, it is easy to overlook another post-Soviet republic's gestures to the West and the potential flashpoint coming from its own restive Russophile region.

Compared to Ukraine, Moldova got away lightly following its departure from Moscow's patronage. When deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich refused to sign the EU Association Agreement in November 2013, deadly riots erupted on the streets of Kiev. Reacting to the newly installed pro-European government in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the Russian army to annex Crimea. Moldova, however, did not see Russian troops enter its territory; they had been already there for over 20 years.

Despite attempts to attract some of their former satellite states like Belarus and Kazakhstan into an "Eurasian Union", Moldova, whose economy depends heavily on agriculture and remittances from expatriates, paved the way for strengthened ties with Brussels. Russia duly suspended Moldovan wine imports (allegedly on grounds of poor quality), and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin warned officials: "I hope you won't freeze," darkly implying that the country's dependence on Russian gas may be in jeopardy.

Such a bold move by Moldova's governing Pro-European coalition may be seen as progress for the tiny nation of 3.5 million, wedged between Romania and Ukraine, which in 2001 became famous for being the first post-Soviet state to re-elect a Communist government. Moldova, however, faces a simmering territorial dispute which accentuated following Crimea's planned succession from Ukraine.

[Igel]

1. Most people prefer to forget Transdnistria exists.

Or why it continues to exist: Not because Moldova wanted to do nothing about it, but because it was convenient for Russia to continue to make problems and threaten to protect Russian "citizens and compatriots." An excuse to project power cripple ungrateful parts of the former Leninist-Stalinist empire. (Yeah, it was the Russian empire that conquered them to start off with, but I enjoy reminding people that Lenin was as much of an imperialist as the tsars were when push came to shove in wanting to re-establish the Russian empire and expand it; and while Lenin closed camps like Kolyma, when he wanted the profits from them all the bad things he said in public about such Russian slave camps for political prisoners meant nothing as he quietly reopened them without apology.)


There are lots of places where the heritage of empire has left pretty bad results. Those who seek to reclaim their heritage or part of their heritage manipulate them (and others) handily.

One could even say that something as bad as Hitler's (and Bandera's) anti-Jewish pogroms in Western Ukraine and the concentration camps concentrated in Poland resulted from the Russian empire. East European Jewry was relatively spread out before the tsars decided to cleanse large swathes of Russia of Jews and move them to the Pale, Ukrainian, "Moldovan" and Polish-dominant areas.