BESA-PSCRP Reports No 33 (February 7, 2024)
Transnistria (officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic) is one of the three quasi-state entities, along with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which still exist today, created on the initiative and with the active support of Moscow in 1990, even before the official collapse of the USSR, in order to maintain influence over the Union republics that sought independence. At the same time, another quasi-state entity — the Republic of Gagauzia — was created on the territory of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR), but in 1994–1995 it was peacefully reintegrated into the already independent Republic of Moldova, receiving the status of “Autonomous entity Gagauzia — Gagauz Yeri” and guaranteeing the preservation on its territory of the status of the Gagauz and Russian languages as official languages along with Romanian.
The formal reason for the proclamation of Transnistria’s independence was the claim of legal succession of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian ASSR), which existed as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) in 1924–1940. Since 1929, its capital was Tiraspol, which is now the capital of Transnistria. In 1940, most of the Moldavian ASSR, as well as most of Bessarabia (a part of …read more
