Last week I went to Transnistria and Chisinau to look at what might come next for Moldova. A few thoughts:
People in Transnistria I spoke to are genuinely afraid that Ukraine is going to attack them. This is the line that is being pushed in the pro-Russian local media: scary ultranationalist Ukrainians, armed by the US, will pour over the border.
Men are afraid they'll be drafted to fight. Some have already left for other regions of Moldova. But there is very little obvious enmity with Chisinau. Every young person I spoke to said they wanted to join Moldova as part of a federation.
As for the 1,500 Russian soldiers who are in Transnistria, these are not exactly scary elite troops. They're almost all locals with Russian passports. Many of the Transnistrian forces have Moldovan passports.
In Chisinau the government is preparing for a range of scenarios. They believe the biggest risk currently is not a Russian invasion of Moldova (they would need to take Odesa to do that, and that seems unlikely at the moment).
But it's that pro-Kremlin actors in Moldova (inc in the Transnistria region) will act to destabilise the country through mysterious explosions, gas price manipulation, disinfo and stoking social unrest in events like May 9 celebrations.
Moldovan PM @natgavrilita told me that Moldova's delicate balance is getting harder to maintain. They're neutral but have expressed their support for the Ukrainian people and taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees.
They are toeing an extremely difficult path, and working relentlessly to keep their country stable. There is hope that they could manage for some time if Russian energy supplies were cut off. But fundamentally this is a deeply combustible situation.
Full piece here, in @thesundaytimes thetimes.co.uk/article/inside…
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