[BRIEF NOTE] Transnistria, Russia?
I'm indebted to Will Baird for pointing out the recent reports that Russia appears to be trying to make the Moldovan region of Transnistria an a "second Kaliningrad."
Sponsored jointly by Russian big business and security services, a network of Greater Russia political and “civic” organizations is sprouting up in Transnistria, advocating the accession to the Russian Federation of this part of Moldova. Recent days have witnessed a wave of founding conferences of these organizations.
In the immediate term, this burst of activity is linked to preparations for the referendum that is scheduled to be held on September 17 by the Russia-installed authorities. A leading question on the ballot is asking voters whether they favor Transnistria’s entry into the Russian Federation. The “referendum” will be followed by a “presidential” election that is expected to return Igor Smirnov for a fourth term in that post. In the short-to-medium term, however, Moscow will use these organizations to provide a semblance of “democratic legitimacy” for Russian control over distant Transnistria in the form of a second Kaliningrad.
The Patriotic Party of Transnistria held its founding conference on August 4 in Tiraspol. It elected as its leader Oleg Smirnov, chairman of the Transnistria branch of Gazprombank, a fully owned subsidiary of Gazprom. Oleg Smirnov mentioned in his acceptance speech that the party’s propaganda activities would use “Gazprom’s resources.” He defined the party’s guiding goal as “integration into Mother Russia” (Olvia Press, August 4).
Oleg, who was the single candidate for the leader’s post, is the younger son of Igor Smirnov. Oleg’s brother, Vladimir, is the long-time head of Transnistria’s “customs” service, which has all along been the most lucrative source of illicit income to the secessionist authorities.
The Patriotic Party’s program defines Transnistria as “Russia’s outpost facing Europe.” The party will oppose changes to the format of Russia’s “peacekeeping” operation. It will campaign for international recognition of Transnistria and its “right” to be part of a “union of sovereign states to be unified by Russia, of fraternal peoples tied to one another by their common history, culture, traditions, spiritual values.”
Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast was once the territorial core of the formerly German region of East Prussia, but was annexed directly to the Soviet Union's Russian republic in 1945 and has remained Russian after the Soviet state's dissolution. Transnistria is comparable to Kaliningrad in that it, too, emerged as a sort of historical parenthesis, tracing its origins to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, a territorial unit of the interwar Soviet Union. Part of the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Moldavian ASSR was created in large part to irredentist desires directed towards the formerly Russian province of Bessarabia, containing a Romanian-speaking population but with strongly Russified urban areas. Never having been part of the interwar Kingdom of Romania, perhaps not unnaturally Transnistrians reacted to the prospect of Moldovan unification with Romania after the Cold War by declaring--with Russian support--an independent state of their own. Unrecognized by the wider world, with an impoverished industrial economy and a nomenklatura/mafia government, and locked into a relationship with a Moldova that now seems interested in at least trying to integrate with the European Union, Transnistria's leadership appears to be interested now in establishing their territory as a satrapy of Russia.
My immediate reaction is that this may be a good thing. Many of Moldova's identity questions have been aggravated substantially by the presence of Transnistria, with the rest of the country becoming increasingly Romanian-speaking (and, perhaps, Romanian-identifying) even as Transnistria becomes increasingly Russified. A Moldova that was thus able to unify with Romania would be a good thing for Moldovans, if only because it would make their mass emigration easier. The problem with Transnistrian secession to Russia, on sober second thought, is the potentially bad precedent that this could set: Is it really a good idea to let great powers carve off bits of territory from their smaller neighbours and annex these parcels to themselves?
Sponsored jointly by Russian big business and security services, a network of Greater Russia political and “civic” organizations is sprouting up in Transnistria, advocating the accession to the Russian Federation of this part of Moldova. Recent days have witnessed a wave of founding conferences of these organizations.
In the immediate term, this burst of activity is linked to preparations for the referendum that is scheduled to be held on September 17 by the Russia-installed authorities. A leading question on the ballot is asking voters whether they favor Transnistria’s entry into the Russian Federation. The “referendum” will be followed by a “presidential” election that is expected to return Igor Smirnov for a fourth term in that post. In the short-to-medium term, however, Moscow will use these organizations to provide a semblance of “democratic legitimacy” for Russian control over distant Transnistria in the form of a second Kaliningrad.
The Patriotic Party of Transnistria held its founding conference on August 4 in Tiraspol. It elected as its leader Oleg Smirnov, chairman of the Transnistria branch of Gazprombank, a fully owned subsidiary of Gazprom. Oleg Smirnov mentioned in his acceptance speech that the party’s propaganda activities would use “Gazprom’s resources.” He defined the party’s guiding goal as “integration into Mother Russia” (Olvia Press, August 4).
Oleg, who was the single candidate for the leader’s post, is the younger son of Igor Smirnov. Oleg’s brother, Vladimir, is the long-time head of Transnistria’s “customs” service, which has all along been the most lucrative source of illicit income to the secessionist authorities.
The Patriotic Party’s program defines Transnistria as “Russia’s outpost facing Europe.” The party will oppose changes to the format of Russia’s “peacekeeping” operation. It will campaign for international recognition of Transnistria and its “right” to be part of a “union of sovereign states to be unified by Russia, of fraternal peoples tied to one another by their common history, culture, traditions, spiritual values.”
Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast was once the territorial core of the formerly German region of East Prussia, but was annexed directly to the Soviet Union's Russian republic in 1945 and has remained Russian after the Soviet state's dissolution. Transnistria is comparable to Kaliningrad in that it, too, emerged as a sort of historical parenthesis, tracing its origins to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, a territorial unit of the interwar Soviet Union. Part of the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Moldavian ASSR was created in large part to irredentist desires directed towards the formerly Russian province of Bessarabia, containing a Romanian-speaking population but with strongly Russified urban areas. Never having been part of the interwar Kingdom of Romania, perhaps not unnaturally Transnistrians reacted to the prospect of Moldovan unification with Romania after the Cold War by declaring--with Russian support--an independent state of their own. Unrecognized by the wider world, with an impoverished industrial economy and a nomenklatura/mafia government, and locked into a relationship with a Moldova that now seems interested in at least trying to integrate with the European Union, Transnistria's leadership appears to be interested now in establishing their territory as a satrapy of Russia.
My immediate reaction is that this may be a good thing. Many of Moldova's identity questions have been aggravated substantially by the presence of Transnistria, with the rest of the country becoming increasingly Romanian-speaking (and, perhaps, Romanian-identifying) even as Transnistria becomes increasingly Russified. A Moldova that was thus able to unify with Romania would be a good thing for Moldovans, if only because it would make their mass emigration easier. The problem with Transnistrian secession to Russia, on sober second thought, is the potentially bad precedent that this could set: Is it really a good idea to let great powers carve off bits of territory from their smaller neighbours and annex these parcels to themselves?