The tiny statelet of Transnistria is squeezed on all sides

“Everyone is welcome, except journalists,” announces the guide as her group have their passports checked on entering Transnistria, a diminutive pro-Russian breakaway enclave that belongs in international law to Moldova. Russian soldiers stand on one side of the road, Moldovans on the other. It is peaceful enough. But ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Transnistrians’ fears that their statelet might become a new front in that war have been very real.

In the centre of Tiraspol, the region’s capital, the flags of two breakaway chunks of Georgia, the only statelets to recognise Transnistria’s independence, fly alongside its own one. Russia, whose flag flutters widely elsewhere, helped prise Transnistria from Moldova in the early 1990s. Everyone assumes that its fate depends on whether Ukraine stands or falls.

In 2022, as Russian troops raced westward across southern Ukraine towards nearby Odessa, Ukrainians feared that the Russians based in Transnistria would attack from that side too. The Transnistrians, for their part, fear that Ukraine might attack to capture their Soviet-era arms dump. Meanwhile, Moldovans think that if the Russians ever succeeded in taking Odessa, it would be only hours before their tanks rolled into Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, to install a puppet government.

Most of Transnistria was not part of historic Bessarabia, which makes up the bulk of modern Moldova, so most Moldovans have little emotional attachment to the strip. Surveys also suggest it would be hard to persuade them to pay for Transnistria’s reintegration, though that is Moldova’s official aim.

The war next door has kick-started the process. Transnistria has survived as a statelet thanks to smuggling and cheap Russian gas. In 2022 Ukraine sealed its border with Transnistria, ending its access to Odessa’s ports. This has forced Transnistrian companies to trade through Moldova.

The enclave’s economy is dominated by Sheriff, a home-grown conglomerate that also owns a successful football team. “Mafia!” spits a doctor, when asked about it. Most Transnistrians hold Moldovan passports and many have Russian and Ukrainian ones, too. Their leaders are divided into at least two clans. One is in with Sheriff while the other is linked to Russia’s security services. Some also have good Ukrainian links. They are all lying low, waiting for the outcome of the war. Requests for interviews for this article went unanswered.

The authorities have said nothing to support Vladimir Putin and unless he defeats Ukraine he can do little to help them. Russia has some 1,800 troops in Transnistria, almost all of them local recruits. In contrast with its links by air and sea to Kaliningrad, its exclave on the Baltic, Russia has no means of reaching its troops in Transnistria. But that is no reason for complacency, says a Moldovan security official.

Moldova and Transnistria exist in a surreal symbiosis. Moldova’s gas company is jointly owned by Russia’s Gazprom, the Moldovan government and Transnistria’s authorities. Gazprom pipes its gas across Ukraine, which takes a transit fee. It flows into Moldova proper, then goes to Transnistria, where it is converted into electricity and sold on home soil or fed back cheaply to Moldova. A new deal is in the offing to pipe gas to Transnistria via Turkey. Meanwhile, Moldova is building new gas and electricity links to Romania.

In the next few years Moldova’s government could cut off the cheap gas to Transnistria, thereby forcing it into submission. But that is the last thing Moldovan officials want to do. Every evening the cars of some 15,000 Transnistrians commuting to Chisinau queue to return home. If Transnistria lost its cheap gas and electricity, many of its 300,000-odd people would flee to Moldova proper, which would be saddled with huge bills. If Moldova had to buy energy at market prices, one of Europe’s poorest economies might be crippled and its pro-Russian politicians boosted.

Reintegrating Transnistria into Moldova would mean importing a largely pro-Russian voting bloc into the politics of a country that has annoyed Mr Putin by being a candidate to join the EU. “Above all we need to maintain stability,” says a Moldovan security man. Hardly soothing. ■