Situation Around the Peacekeeping Mission on the Dniester

Anton ŠVEC

Among the intrigues of this year is the extent to which the ruling regime will pursue its plans to remove the Russian military presence from Moldova’s constitutional territory

In his comments on the deteriorating situation on the left bank of the Dniester at a crisis briefing on 6 January, the premier said that the reintegration plan envisages, in the first stage, the withdrawal of “illegally deployed Russian troops”: “Our goal is the reintegration of the country, which should start with Russia withdrawing its troops, which will allow us to administer the region accordingly. After all, we want a peaceful solution to the conflict, and a peaceful solution starts with the withdrawal of troops.” The second step should be the deployment of an international peacekeeping contingent, which will allow Chisinau to provide services in Transnistria, i.e. actually establish control over the region. These statements fully fit into the logic of the country’s current leadership, which considers the withdrawal of Russian troops to be a key precondition for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Earlier, Maia Sandu, who accused Moscow, including from the rostrum of the United Nations, of violating Moldova’s constitutional neutrality, spoke in a similar vein. The interdependence of the political settlement of the Transnistrian issue and transformation of the peacekeeping mission can be traced for several decades, even in documents (for example, the joint statement of the presidents of Moldova, Russia and Transnistrian signed on 17 March 2009). But before everyone adhered to the assumption that, first of all, it was necessary to define a settlement formula and a guaranteed status of Transnistria, after which Russia would agree to withdraw its peacekeeping contingent and the Operational Group servicing it. Such a model was also proposed in the notorious “Kozak Memorandum” in 2003, which envisaged a 15-year transition period for the deployment of Russian military on the left bank. Now our authorities are taking advantage of the international context, in which ties between Moscow and Tiraspol are limited, to turn the situation in their favor. The region’s dependence on Chisinau in logistics and trade has grown considerably, a certain information vacuum has formed around it, there has been no access to international negotiation platforms for more than 5 years. The previously reached agreements have not functioned for a long time - this is what Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky lamented at yesterday’s meeting with the OSCE Chairman-in-Office. This allows Chisinau to build a conceptually different line, delivering ultimatums to the Kremlin, especially amid the gas crisis. In the meantime, even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky entered the discussion of the latter, while Moscow is taking a wait-and-see attitude. Against this background, the ruling regime sends unambiguous signals regarding the peacekeeping mission at the level of its governing bodies. For the first time in decades, the Moldovan delegation to the Joint Control Commission refused to participate in the traditional tour of peacekeeping posts to congratulate the personnel, although this event has always been held at any level of relations between the banks of the Dniester. The co-chairman of the JCC from Transnistria, Oleg Belyakov, said that “the absence of the Moldovan representatives shows a negative attitude towards the peacekeeping mission and the soldiers of the posts’. Meanwhile, the JCC meeting scheduled for yesterday did not take place at all, and there were no comments on this matter from any of the parties to the peacekeeping process. The work of the commission is basically blocked, as more than a hundred minutes of its meetings have not been signed for the last 2.5 years. The stumbling block is the militia posts in the Security Zone set up by Transnistria in accordance with the “yellow terrorist threat level” introduced in the region. Chisinau demands that the JCC eliminate these posts by its decision. Tiraspol opposes this, insisting that this issue falls within its political and law enforcement competence and depends on the stabilization of the security situation. Nevertheless, yesterday the president and members of the government freely visited several settlements in the Security Zone, including Varnita and Copanсa to speak with local authorities and residents affected by the energy crisis. There were accusations against the regional administration, which allegedly does not make contact on the issue of connecting the energy infrastructure of these villages to the national transmission networks. However, the president and the prime minister refrained from making any political calls. The country’s updated national security strategy envisages that the Russian contingent and the armed forces of Transnistria are the main threat. A number of other normative-legal acts and regulatory decisions have also been adopted that call into question the legality of Russia’s presence on the Dniester. The 1992 agreement on the principles of a peaceful settlement in the Transnistrian region remains actually the thread which helps the peacekeeping operation on the Dniester stay afloat. So far, our leadership has not withdrawn its signature under this document. Nevertheless, unsafe tendencies are growing, and it seems that the authorities are quite satisfied with this development of events, although they are not inclined to make any sudden moves. Of course, the state of the peacekeeping process, especially amid the fact that the political representatives of Chisinau and Tiraspol have not agreed on the signing of a declaration on the peaceful settlement of the conflict for six months now, remains the main indicator of the parties’ intentions and the prospects for the security situation. If the problems in the activity of the peacekeeping mission’s governing bodies continue to grow and the meetings cease to be regular or stop altogether, this will be an extremely worrying signal for the entire region.