#Ukraine_EU: Austrian MFA Schallenberg stated that Ukraine should not be offered EU candidate status. This is the first EU national official to voice his opposition in public before the EU Council in June. The Austrian MFA Schallenberg belongs to⤵️
the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), which is part of the EPP political family. It is strange that the leadership of the EPP, including Tusk himself, has not built a unanimous position among the national politicians of the MSs, who will have to approve the opinion⤵️
of the EU Commission on Ukraine's application for membership. This could mean that the Austrian government is also reluctant to EU membership application from Moldova and Georgia. An interesting remark is that, unlike Georgia and Ukraine,⤵️
Moldova has a political advantage in the dialogue with Brussels because its ruling PAS party is a partner of the EPP.
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#Moldova: The situation has not changed much since yesterday's nerves around the explosions in the breakaway region of Moldova. The "peacekeepers" of the region carry out their function without any change from their mandate. This comforting news comes from the de facto⤵️
authorities of Transnistria. It is worth mentioning that neither the OSCE Mission to Moldova nor the Polish OSCE Chairmanship made any statement on the provocation aimed at destabilizing security in the Transnistria region. This does not help calm things down in⤵️
Chisinau and Tiraspol. One lesson must be learned from this, namely that until Russian war in Ukraine is not over, the security situation in Moldova must be closely watched as much as the process of European integration.
#Moldova: Unknown online accounts apparently originating from the separatist region began advocating attacking Chisinau as a preventive measure for the Tiraspol grenade explosion. Because of that, my family in Chisinau (and other friends they know) prepare their luggage to ⤵️
leave the city and then the country (for Romania) if the separatist region launches an attack. This looks like an unlikely scenario. As I commented earlier, this is an attempt to destabilize the region. but the public is already scared because of the Russian aggression in ⤵️
Ukraine and because they know that Chisinau is about 30 km away from the separatist region. The response of the Moldovan Reintegration Office to the explosion is somewhat weak and not at all reassuring for the population of the capital. The Bureau representing the government ⤵️
#Russia_Moldova: After last week's hawkish statements made by the Russian general, probably under the militaristic adrenaline fueled by the military aggression against Ukraine, the Russian MFA tries to act like a "dove". The latter issued a statement to calm the public.⤵️
MFA Deputy Director Rudenko reiterated that Moscow respects the territorial integrity of Moldova and advocates a special status for the Transnistria region. This statement is indicative of two major things about Moscow's view on Moldova/Tranistrian region: ⤵️
1) The Russian military is not close to the borders with Moldova, while public threats to extend the war to reach the Transnistrian region may further isolate it. Moldovan public opinion already perceives it as a huge source of instability;⤵️
#EU_US: Some takeaways of the recent EU-US strategic partnership meeting related to the WB-Russia-EaP-Central-Asia region: 1) The two sides will coordinate to ensure that Russian perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine are held accountable; ⤵️
2) As part of the new High-Level Bilateral Dialogue on Russia (launched on March 30), they agreed to continue coordinating security assistance to Ukraine and the application of sanctions against Russia and Belarus; 3) They assessed EU and US efforts to counter ⤵️
Russian and Chinese propaganda and disinformation campaigns; 4) Both the EU and the US agreed to discourage China from eventually helping Russia circumvent sanctions; 5) Ensuring resilience, sovereignty, territorial integrity and stability in Wider Europe, including ⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: Russian military's statements about the need to extend the aggression in Ukraine up to the Transnistria region of Moldova in order to protect the Russian minority in the breakaway region of Moldova are based on a deliberate distortion of reality on the ground. ⤵️
The explanation boils down to two substantive arguments: 1) Moldova does not control the separatist region, where the Russian authorities exert effective influence, as the various rulings of the ECtHR have confirmed; 2) The population of the Transnistria region is made up of ⤵️
three equally large ethnic groups of Moldovans, Ukrainians and Russians (30% of the population each). Although de jure all three languages have the status of an official one (Moldovan (representing the Romanian language in Cyrillic), Russian and Ukrainian), the dominant ⤵️
#Ukraine_Moldova: Kyiv insists that Russia can engineer the Transnistria provocation. I have explained to several Western journalists that such a scenario is not plausible. Here are my main arguments that I didn't change since Russia has started the war: ⤵️
1) Russia cannot guarantee military and other supplies by land; Odesa is under the control of the Ukrainian authorities; 2) If something happens by air, the Ukrainian side will get those involved and the Transnistria region at risk of being affected and causing huge damage ⤵️
to critical infrastructure; 3) The local elites of the breakaway region are not interested in being dragged into the war and will do so only if Russia takes control of Odesa. What is also important to note is that ⤵️