Transdniestria Will Be Settled without Moldova

The settlement process of the protracted conflict on the Dniester should come to an end in the coming years, and it is unclear whether the position of Chisinau will be decisive in this matter. Doubts about the ability of the Moldovan authorities to keep the dialogue with the left bank under control already arise among the Moldova’s international partners. Dmitry Astakhov, especially for the RTA: The leader of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky again mentioned Transdniestria in an interview. The Ukrainian President for at least the third time refers to the Transdniestrian problem as a negative example of how conflicts in Eastern Europe can be frozen: without clear prospects for the future, and for many years and even decades. Why Zelensky likes so much the viral narrative about close ‘pridnestrovization’ of Donbas promoted back in an era of Poroshenko is an open question, but that’s not the point. Zelensky always recalls the Transdniestrian problem when he talks about the settlement in Eastern Ukraine. For competent people it’s strange: the international community is reluctant and sluggish, but still recognizes that there is peace in Transdniestria, and this is good. In Donbas, the main task, admittedly, is to stop the war. It seems that the situations differ, but Zelensky might have a reason to repeatedly return to analogies with Moldova. According to some estimates, the next meeting in the Normandy format could be an obvious breakthrough in the Ukrainian crisis. First, the situation in Donbas has consistently deteriorated all five years since the beginning of the conflict, with terrible casualties. The political leadership of Kyiv under Poroshenko took a radical anti-Russian course, which in the future did not help the ex-President to stay in power and enlist the support of the West. Something positive for Ukraine is overdue. Second – and Zelensky understands this perfectly well – there are also powerful shifts in the entire architecture of geopolitics in Europe and the ‘surroundings’. In the Middle East, extraordinary processes are taking place around Syria, where Russia is about to try on its usual role as a peacemaker on the separation line. In the already mentioned Moldova, a multilateral treaty on Transdniestria is coming, as evidenced by Moscow’s kind offer to begin the disposal of ammunition on the left bank of the Dniester. Obviously, fundamental decisions will happen in Donbas in the first place. If the logic is correct, then only how the decisions on Transdniestria and Donbas will look is in question: Moscow and Brussels have already taken a principled policy ‘towards progress’. And as strange as it may sound, in relation to the situation on the Dniester, this may not be a long-awaited triumph for Chisinau in the current environment, but an inglorious agreement to the formula, which Moldova will be offered very convincingly from the outside. The point is very simple: it is close to serious changes in Transdniestria, and Chisinau is not ready for them – neither politically, nor technically, nor morally. Over the years of negotiations with Tiraspol, Moldova has developed a comfortable habit of conducting a non-binding and constantly stalling dialogue with the authorities of the left bank. Therefore, when at the end of 2017 the parties to the conflict agreed to solve a number of practical problems, a year later Moldova experienced an alarming sobering up. And all the positive developments that the international mediators liked so much have stalled. The situation reached its climax at the talks in Bratislava, when Moldovan negotiators disrupted the signing of an ordinary document on the results of the round of the 5+2 format. Experts believe that there is a clear misunderstanding of Chisinau’s position among the mediators and observers in the negotiations on Transdniestria in connection with the Bratislava impasse. Moreover, the issue passes from the purely negotiation workings of Tiraspol and Chisinau into the category of a serious flaw of the current power coalition of Moldova. To put it simply, Brussels no longer understands who is responsible for the Transdniestrian direction in Chisinau and what goals it pursues. So, the Moldovan negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Sova is a member of the Sandu Cabinet, but is affiliated with President Dodon, who has long claimed a monopoly in the Transdniestrian issue. However, both the government and the presidential office is in no hurry to comment or at least call someone’s mistake the failure of the Bratislava meeting. Chisinau finally admits the lack of consensus on dialogue with the Left Bank – and thus recognizes that there is no consensus on the status of the region in Moldova either. If this situation does not change in the near future, international partners and curators of the Moldovan authorities in the EU will seriously consider the possibility of forced ‘patronage’ over this direction of Moldovan policy, which will mean the loss of real influence of Chisinau on the settlement on the Dniester. Regardless of who will formally oversee this issue in the government of Moldova, the talks will be held in the general context of the current rapprochement between the West and Moscow. As a result, the fate of the conflict on the Dniester will develop according to a logic that will not always and will not necessarily take into account Moldova’s own strategic interests. Probably, that is why there is a deathly silence in Chisinau on the Transnistrian topic – apparently, the leadership of the ruling coalition understands the scale of the problems and is seriously considering how to fix the situation. If, of course, there are still real opportunities for this.