Just 13 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, the mayor of a village in Moldova was watching television coverage of the Russian invasion of the neighboring country. He played with a pen, popping the cap off and on, as he watched the Russian advance on the screen towards Odessa, the closest city to his own, in Ukraine.
“I can’t stop watching,” said Mayor Alexander Nikitenko. “If they take Odessa, it’s clear they’ll come here next.”
And if the Russians make it this far, Nikitenko wondered, will they stop?
These questions are being asked across Eastern Europe in former communist-bloc republics like Moldova. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shattered assumptions about the political order after the Cold War, providing clear evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees European borders as something to be redrawn by force.
A poor country of 2.6 million people squeezed between Ukraine and Romania, Moldova is perhaps the most vulnerable. Unlike Poland and the Baltic countries, it is not a member of NATO. [aliança militar ocidental]. It is also not a member of the European Union, but it filed a hasty, long-term request last week, something akin to a flag.
More troublingly, two decades before Russian-speaking separatists excavated a piece of Ukraine, they did the same thing in Moldova.
In 1992, Moscow-backed separatists took control of a 400km narrow strip of land known as Transnistria, which runs along much of the east bank of the Dniester River as well as parts of the west bank.
They also lay claim to pockets of land still controlled by Moldova, including the village of Nikitenko called Varnita.
Transnistria has never been recognized internationally — not even by Russia. But Putin’s country retains 1,500 troops there, nominally to keep the peace and protect a huge stockpile of Soviet-era munitions.
If Russian forces advance to the Moldovan border, some Moldovans fear that Russia will soon recognize Transnistria, as it did with Ukraine’s self-declared breakaway republics — giving Moscow a similar pretext to officially occupy it — or perhaps later. absorb it in a pro-Russian Ukraine or in Russia itself.
Arrows on a map of Ukraine featured in a TV address on Tuesday’s Russian invasion of Belarus leader Alexandr Lukachenko suggested that Russian troops in Ukraine planned to enter Transnistria after capturing Odessa. Belarus’ ambassador to Moldova later apologized for Lukachenko’s map, claiming it was a mistake.
Within the Moldovan government, senior officials have quietly discussed concerns that Russia could fully occupy Moldova, two Moldovan officials said on condition of anonymity.
“People are scared, literally scared,” said Alexandru Flenchea, an analyst and former deputy prime minister of Moldova who has overseen efforts to reintegrate Transnistria. “Many are considering emigration before they can become refugees.”
No European can feel safe today, especially after Putin instructed his army to prepare Russia’s nuclear arsenal, Flenchea said.
“But of all the countries except the aggressors themselves, Moldova is the closest to military action,” added Flenchea.
Though small and impoverished, Moldova has historically been an indicator of power dynamics in Eastern Europe. In just over two centuries, the country was part of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Romania and the Soviet Union.
Along the Dniester River, this complex history, coupled with the explosive nature of the current moment, has generated expectations of a power shift.
The Dniester could now become the border between Russia and the West, said political analyst Sergei Chirokov, a former Transnistrian official. “Will this border be an iron curtain?” asked Chirokov. “Or a flexible boundary?”
Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, visited Moldova on Wednesday (2) in a show of support, while Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, visited on Sunday (6).
“We strongly support Moldova’s territorial integrity,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
In the short term, some have speculated that both Transnistrian forces and Russian troops in the region could be sucked into the fight, to aid the Russian campaign in southwestern Ukraine. On Friday night, a news agency run by Transnistrian authorities said a missile hit a Ukrainian railway near Transnistria, highlighting the risk of military repercussions.
On Sunday, a television channel run by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry claimed that recent Russian attacks on a Ukrainian airport were fired from Transnistria. Both the Moldovan government and the Transnistrian authorities denied the report.
As early as Sunday morning, Moldovan officials and foreign diplomats said there was no evidence that the Transnistrian leadership was trying to get involved in the fighting.
Sandu, the president of Moldova, said Sunday that the Russian invasion had left the country unsafe. But she and other officials tried to avoid ignited tensions. In last year’s parliamentary elections, about a third of Moldovans voted for parties that support Russia.
In an interview, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita said her government faced more pressing challenges, such as the sudden influx of more than 230,000 refugees. There are almost no free hotel beds in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, and many refugees are staying in makeshift camps and in people’s homes.
“We are a neutral country, we always act from a neutral point of view and we fully expect others to do so,” Gavrilita said. “We don’t see an imminent danger” of Transnistria entering the war, she added. “This is, for now, a hypothetical question.”
Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselski declined an interview request; the head of Transnistria’s foreign affairs department, Vitali Ignatiev, declined to comment when contacted by phone; and Transnistrian authorities also denied entry to the American newspaper The New York Times.
In recent public statements, however, the Transnistrian leadership has sought to minimize tensions.
Any reports of aggression from Transnistria were a “blatant lie,” Krasnoselsi said in a statement on Sunday afternoon. Transnistria “does not pose a military threat, it does not draw up plans of an aggressive nature,” he added. “We are focused on ensuring peace.”
Recent military exercises by Transnistrian security forces have been defensive, also suggesting they are not training for a campaign in Ukraine, Flenchea said, citing recent statements by Transnistrian officials.
As Transnistria seeks to become independent from Moldova, the two have established a working, if uncomfortable, relationship.
Transnistria has its own flag, with a Soviet-style hammer and sickle, and its own makeshift currency, which consists partly of plastic coins that resemble a board game. At the local level, communities in Moldova and Transnistria are often interdependent, and Transnistricians often use banks and medical centers in cities controlled by Moldova.
At the school in the village of Nikitenko, about a third of the pupils are from a neighboring municipality in Transnistria. During a recent blizzard, Nikitenko shared snowplows with the neighboring municipality, and firefighters from the two cities joined forces to put out a fire at a garbage dump, Nikitenko said.
Any disruption to the current situation would risk disrupting trade and food supplies in Transnistria, which is largely dependent on Moldova, Ukraine and the European Union. It could also jeopardize one of Transnistria’s main revenue streams — the fees it charges Moldova for the electricity it supplies to the capital, Chisinau.
Transnistrian residents lining up to withdraw cash in Varnita expressed little enthusiasm for a new armed conflict.
“I want Transnistria to be independent,” said Anastasia Secretariova, a 31-year-old housewife. “But what Putin did made it worse.”
Secretary was saddened to think of her three-year-old twins growing up to fight “a war without any purpose,” she said. Friends of hers enlisted in Russian-led local forces also have little appetite for more fighting, Secretaryva added. “They just want to live in peace.”
Ultimately, though, Transnistrians will have little say in what happens here, said Shirokov, an analyst and former Transnistrian official.
“The Eurasian continent is being reshaped,” Shirokov said. “Whether it’s just Russia that reshapes our future, or both Russia and America, we don’t know. But what’s clear is that it won’t be our own hands that will influence things.”
Regardless of what happens in Ukraine, Russia can still try to preserve the situation in Transnistria, a Moldovan official said. A Transnistria that remains part of Moldova could be more useful to Russia as it would continue to complicate any Moldovan aspirations for integration with the West, the official added.
Whatever happens to Transnistria, the war in Ukraine will unleash a series of challenges for Moldova, said Nicu Popescu, Moldova’s foreign minister.
“The war will cause at least a lost decade,” Popescu said. “Not only in Moldova, but throughout the region.”
