🇲🇩How does tiny Transnistria make the headlines?

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Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester river and the Moldovan–Ukrainian border. Its capital and largest city is Tiraspol./ source: Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, is an unrecognised breakaway state that is internationally recognised as part of Moldova.

And it's the remnant of a bygone Soviet strategy. 

The regime at that time created Russian-dominated enclaves across the Soviet republics. South Ossetia in Georgia, the Donbas in Ukraine – and also the region along the Dniester river. 

The Dniester River is a major waterway that traditionally separated Russia's sphere of influence to the east and Romanian-speaking areas to the west. In the 1920s, the Soviet authorities carved out an autonomous zone from Ukraine territory to expand and secure the Russian sphere of influence.

At the end of World War II (after Soviet forces had driven the Nazis out of the region) Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established with gigantic factories and power plants, mainly in the Russian-speaking areas – today's Transnistria. 

Neither Apple maps nor Google maps show the country borders of Transnistria. / source: Apple maps

In 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Transistrians declared their independence and, with the help of Russian troops, won a separatist battle against Moldova in 1992.

Then for three decades, more or less, nothing changed. 

No United Nations member state, not even Russia, has recognised Transnistria as a state. The region – with a population of less than 500,000, its own currency (the Transnistrian ruble), flag and national anthem – survived economically due to ongoing financial support from Moscow.

Perhaps Transnistria will have to pay a high price for this support one day.

South Ossetia in Georgia (in 2008) and the Donbas in Ukraine (in 2014) have already exploded in bloodshed. 

Putin uses Russian-speaking enclaves to make and enforce territorial claims outside of Russia. 

A series of mysterious explosions have taken place across Transnistria recently. They were small and did not hurt anyone. According to the New York Times, analysts believe they are the handiwork of Russian saboteurs trying to firm up local loyalties. 

Will the calculation work out in a country dominated by the Russian media bubble? 

The journalist Jeffrey Gettleman, international correspondent for the New York Times, has his doubts. "Despite years of benefiting enormously from Russian patronage and protection, Transnistrians want no part of Russia's war with Ukraine," he writes in a report from the country.

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sources: 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moldova-transnistria-explosions-ukraine-russia/ 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/world/europe/transnistria-moldova-russia-ukraine.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria