Ukraine must change its attitude towards Transnistria and to impose an economic blockade against it. This, according to Ukrainian MP Iryna Fryz will ruin that unrecognized potentially dangerous republic.
“Transnistria hosts a Russian military force, which constitutes a military threat for both Ukraine and Moldova. This is also a place from where Russian emissaries, saboteurs and radical anti-Ukrainian activists keep infiltrating into the territory of Odessa region. So, tougher economic sanctions against Russia and an economic blockade of Transnistria will restrict the Russians’ abilities to support that republic and will make impossible its further existence,” Fryz says in her blog.
She is convinced that this will either result in Transnistria’s collapse or will force Russia to more actively support that republic at the expense of its own economy. “In any case, this all will end in the collapse of Transnistria as a pseudo-republic and its reintegration with Moldova,” Fryz says.
She believes that this may also mark the end of other unrecognized post-Soviet republics.
As EADaily reported earlier, on June 8, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko ratified laws denouncing the agreement between the governments of Russia and Ukraine on transit of Russian military forces temporarily deployed in the territory of Moldova through the territory of Ukraine and the agreement between the governments of Russia and Ukraine on inter-state military shipments.
According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Russia’s Special Representative for Transnistria Dmitry Rogozin, the Ukrainian authorities have de facto betrayed their citizens living in that region. This step will not affect the Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria but will make Russia fully responsible for the security of the local population.
According to Foreign Minister of Transnistria Nina Shtanski, Ukraine’s decision has undermined the Transnistrian peace process and has brought into question Ukraine’s role in it.
Russia sent its peacekeepers to Transnistria according to an agreement on principle of peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. As of today, there are almost 1,500 Russian soldiers and officers in that region. Now that Russian military forces have been denied transit via Ukraine, the only way for they to get to Transnistria is the airport of Chisinau, Moldova. But in May the Moldovan authorities began creating obstacles to the transit of Russian military men to Transnistria. More specifically, they now want Russia to notify them of any dispatch of soldiers a month before their arrival. They have also said that they will let pass only those who are supposed to join the peacekeeping battalion.