On how conflicts are fueled

When the Russian aggression stirred up a crisis in the Donbas, many experts began to speak of similarity between the situation in eastern Ukraine and the Transnistria conflict. What are the particularities of this conflict and is it really similar to the situation in eastern Ukraine? What is the role of OSCE and the notorious 14th Russian Army in the Transnistria settlement? This is the subject of The Day’s exclusive interview with Serhii Pyrozhkov who served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Moldova for seven years and eight months.

“RUSSIA USES TRANSNISTRIA AS A FACTOR OF INFLUENCE ON CHISINAU”

Serhii PYROZHKOV: “It is very tempting to draw a parallel between the conflicts in Transnistria and Ukraine’s Donbas. It is of little wonder because the scenarios are rather similar. But there are also some differences: Russia, which is directly involved in eastern Ukraine, has no common border with Transnistria. This presents certain problems. There is a 1,200-strong Russian military contingent there. It can be supposedly used as a real force. Many political and military figures, including those in Ukraine, are saying that Transnistria poses a military threat to Ukraine, especially to the south of Odesa oblast.

“It is not quite so. Transnistria is not going to attack anybody. My personal contacts with the Transnistrian leader Yevgeny Shevchuk prove that Transnistria has no real forces or desire to enter into a military confrontation with Ukraine. Why? Ukrainians constitute a third of its population. The Russians, Moldavians, and Ukrainians account for 30, 30, and 30 percent, respectively, of Transnistria’s population. This is a deterrent factor of sorts.

“It is a big geopolitical game. So, in my view, Transnistria cannot be a self-sufficient factor of any aggression. It can only be used if there is a real opportunity, such as a large-scale aggression and expansion all over the region. As long as the Donbas is holding out and does not allow the Russians to advance across the territory of Ukraine (I mean the project which Russia calls ‘Novorossia’ and which so far remains a nonstarter), Transnistria cannot represent a military danger in the face-off with Ukraine.

“If we compare the situations in Transnistria and the Donbas, the former had a Russian military contingent – the 14th Army commanded by General Aleksandr Lebed, a well-known Russian politician. The Russian military also remained behind on the territory of Transnistria after the then presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Mircea Snegur of Moldova had signed a peace agreement.

“There was no Russian contingent in the Donbas. Those who are there now are the so-called local militia and the forces that came from abroad, from Russia. They came as occupiers in order to latently accomplish their mission. Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps saying that Russia is not a party to the conflict and there are no regular Russian military units in the Donbas. Yet there is conclusive evidence of the active special-purpose units, resistance forces, etc., there. This conflict is called ‘hybrid war’ because it was not officially declared.”

“IN THE PAST 23 YEARS, TRANSNISTRIA HAS FORMED ALL THE ATTRIBUTES OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION”

“Now about the prospects. In the past 23 years, Transnistria has formed all the attributes of public administration. They have a leadership of their own – the so-called president, government, and parliament, – the national bank, their own currency, and the uniformed services: the ministries of defense and the interior, the investigation committee, border security forces, and the state security committee. These institutions are in fact typical of a normal state. The only thing they do not have is international recognition. Nobody is going to recognize them. Even when the destiny of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was being decided, they hoped very much that Transnistria would also gain independence under this cover. Even though the Transnistrian leader Shevchuk has been saying lately that the best model for them is independent development and a civilized ‘divorce’ with Moldova, Chisinau is taking no steps to put this into practice.

“Now that Ukraine and Moldova signed the EU Association Agreement on June 27, 2014, they follow the same vector of foreign political development. Russia is well aware of this, so what it needs is not so much to recognize Transnistria as to slow down the Western vector of Moldova’s and Ukraine’s development.”

ON THE “SECOND WIND” OF MOLDOVA’S NEUTRAL STATUS

Mykola SIRUK: “Russia is interested in keeping Moldova in a suspended condition, and the neutral status enshrined in the Constitution of Moldova guarantees nothing to the latter…”

S.P.: “They chose neutral status well before the Transnistria events. The war broke out in 1992, and the Constitution was adopted in 1994. This neutral status was borrowed from the Declaration of Independence which Moldova had announced in 1991. They were hardly thinking of neutrality or bloc allegiances at the time because other issues were topical.”

Yevhen MARCHUK: “But do you remember the time when we were adopting the Declaration of Independence? Why did the Declaration use the word ‘nonaligned’? Just to show the West that we were not aligned with Russia as a bloc of the former Soviet Union…”

S.P.: “This was done to show that we were distancing ourselves from the Russian bloc, i.e., from the still-alive Warsaw Pact. Therefore, all the independent republics that emerged on the former USSR’s territory, including Moldova and Ukraine, automatically opted for nonaligned status. But this status got its ‘second wind’ when we began to speak of NATO and Euro-Atlantic integration. Russia was upset very much and began take active actions.

“A former Russian official, who had once worked in the intelligence service and the foreign ministry, told me privately that the Kremlin could not forgive itself that when Mikhail Gorbachev was discussing with the Americans the reunification of Germany, he failed to demand in no uncertain terms that NATO should not expand to the East – as a result, the Baltic states and Central Europe went on to join NATO.”

M.S.: “Gorbachev said recently that there had never been a promise like this.”

S.P.: “When they understood that NATO enlargement ran counter to Russian national, expansionistic, interests, they could not put up with the fact that the borders of NATO member states would reach Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod, etc. Russia’s President Putin is repeating this. Russia will never leave this alone. So, Russia is going to offer fierce resistance to the ex-Soviet countries except for the Baltic republics. Russia will never change its mind. Putin confirmed this, when he said in Crimea: ‘If we had not taken Crimea, NATO troops would be now in Sevastopol.’”

Ye.M.: “They are being idiotic enough to claim: Ukraine wants to NATO in order to begin a war against Russia.”

S.P.: “The Russian propaganda has taken a serious and multimode approach to this. Propaganda is one of the elements of a modern hybrid war. They will be doing this to torpedo us all the way.”

“THE TRANSNISTRIA CONFLICT BROKE OUT AFTER THE LANGUAGE LAW WAS PASSED”

M.S.: “What mistakes did the Moldovan leadership make at the very outset?”

S.P.: “The Transnistria conflict broke out after the language law was passed…”

Ye.M.: “Do you see a pattern here?”

S.P.: “And Moldova switched to Latin characters. What is known as the Moldavian language differs from Romanian by alphabet only. Cyrillic characters in Moldavian were a creature of the Soviet system.”

Ye.M.: “Like ‘the Iryna Farion law’ in the Crimean situation – the same thing.”

S.P.: “When they introduced the Roman alphabet, they thought this could be done throughout Moldova. Transnistria said ‘no.’ Besides, there was also the Romanian factor. During World War Two, when Ion Antonescu occupied this region at Hitler’s consent, they formed ‘Transnistria district’ with Odesa as capital. But they in fact seized an area from the Prut to the Southern Buh – almost the entire Odesa oblast and Transnistria which had been part of Ukraine before 1940. But after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed, they took Transnistria from Ukraine and Bessarabia (land between the Prut and the Dniester) from Romania and formed the Moldavian SSR, while the Kholm region and Northern Bukovyna were made part of Bessarabia.

“Chisinau believed that the Roman alphabet should also be used in Transnistria. But the latter saw an outbreak of protests which in turn provoked this conflict.”

“RUSSIA WAS ‘SETTING FIRE’ TO TRANSNISTRIA ALMOST THE WAY IT WAS DOING SO TO CRIMEA”

Yevhen MARCHUK: “When tensions began to grow there, I was chairman of Ukraine’s Security Service. Russia was ‘setting fire’ to Transnistria almost the way it was doing so to Crimea. The Russian 14th Army, heavily equipped with weapons and commanded by the well-known General Lebed who had seen service in Afghanistan, was stationed in Transnistria. What is army as a military formation? It is a self-sufficient large unit which has all the elements of military intelligence service except for counterintelligence. Besides, an army stationed outside the territory of its own state is engaged, willy-nilly, in recruiting the local populace – allegedly for guarding military installations. So, in this situation the 14th Army took part in ‘setting Transnistria on fire’ as a military formation that had its own intelligence units. There was nothing new, as far as techniques are concerned, in Crimea. The Crimean crisis was developing in 1993-94 on the same lines as that of Transnistria in 1991-92.

“As the conflict produced a very large number of refugees on the territory of Ukraine, Vice Prime Minister Kostiantyn Masyk was put in charge of addressing this problem. He and I went there more than once to find out what to do with those people. Besides, our Security Service ascertained the first facts of recruitment and even penetration of secret agents disguised as refugees.

“It was important for us to establish contact with General Lebed because he could be expected to do anything. I sent one of my deputies to negotiate with him. Lebed showed decisiveness after the Afghan war and chose to run for Russia’s presidency. From the military viewpoint, the 14th Army in fact ‘strangled’ the situation.”

Serhii PYROZHKOV: “He told the Moldovans that if they did not stop, he would have breakfast in Transnistria, lunch in Chisinau, and dinner in Bucharest.”

Ye.M.: “Lebed agreed to come in contact. They established something like a security service in Transnistria. Do you remember the episode when Igor Smirnov was caught in Kyiv?”

“IF UKRAINE HAD OPENLY ANNEXED TRANSNISTRIA, RUSSIA WOULD HAVE IMMEDIATELY RAISED THE QUESTION OF CRIMEA”

S.P.: “He told me personally that he had gone to Kyiv to surrender – so that Transnistria were part of Ukraine. He came to Leonid Kravchuk, but the latter turned him in to the Moldovan security services.”

Ye.M.: “Mr. Kravchuk is an experienced political figure. But why did he do so? Because he had established more or less good relations with Snegur and it was not clear what the Transnistria conflict will end up with.”

S.P.: “Besides, if Ukraine had openly annexed Transnistria, Russia would have immediately raised the question of Crimea.”

Ye.M.: “The 14th Army would have surely advanced to the Ukrainian territory because Lebed was its commander. We then established contact with the security service chief. Incidentally, he had been engaged in the Vilnius operation.

“We later ‘evacuated’ him to Kyiv and held long negotiations. Our only goal was to ward off a war on our territory, do something with refugees, and demarcate the border. It was not clear whether it was a Ukrainian-Transnistrian or a Ukrainian-Moldovan border. For Transnistria was not recognized, not to mention the economic side of the matter. Speaking of similarities and differences, there can be no 100-percent coincidence, but the main situation-influencing techniques are practically the same. First it was in Transnistria, then in Crimea, and in the Donbas. The technique is the same.”

S.P.: “There are about 150,000 ethnic Ukrainians residing in Transnistria, out of whom almost 90,000 are Ukrainian citizens. It is a serious problem for diplomats because we do not have a consular institution on this territory, whereas there are a lot of our citizens there. Ukraine has repeatedly raised the question of opening a consulate, but Moldova does not agree because this will amount to a diplomatic recognition of sorts.”

Ye.M.: “Do you know what mechanism helped Ukraine keep up its presence there at least a little? We brought over very many school books from the ministry of education. It was in 1994-95, when there were quite a few Ukrainian-language schools and quite a numerous Ukrainian community in Transnistria. This mechanism could have been actively used to exert spiritual and cultural influence. It was not about governmental functions. But this was forgotten, as it was later in Crimea.”

“A NEW GENERATION THAT DOES NOT KNOW MOLDOVA HAS GROWN IN TRANSNISTRIA IN THE PAST 23 YEARS”

Valentyn TORBA: “How do Transnistrian residents coexist with residents of Moldova proper?”

S.P.: “People get adapted. There are no particular problems at the grassroots level. Many have relatives on the other bank of the river. They have the so-called Security Zone along the Dniester’s fairway. There are outposts there, but no troops are concentrated. These peacekeeping outposts are located on the bridges that cross the Dniester. The peacekeepers are a Transnistrian, a Moldovan, and a Russian contingent. This is all called United Army Group. This format was preceded by many variants of an attempted settlement. On top of this all is the Joint Control Commission (OKK) – it is a broader format, and ten Ukrainian observers also attend its sessions. But the OKK has almost not been functioning in the past six months due to the continuing tension. Moldova believes it is not a border but an administrative boundary. The Transnistrians have in turn built a full-fledged border with fully-equipped checkpoints. There are border guards, customs officers, and security personnel there.”

Ye.M.: “If we imagine there will be no Russian troops in Transnistria, will there be a real cause for conflict?”

S.P.: “There is no real conflict between people. Many Moldovan politicians were born in what is now Transnistria. Incidentally, interfamily ties are very widespread in Moldova. When I was going to be posted in Moldova, I was told: whatever you say somebody will be immediately known to the public at large. But in Transnistria a new generation that does not know Moldova has grown in the past 23 years.”

Ye.M.: “Is the Transnistria problem standing in the way of Moldova’s integration into Europe?”

S.P.: “It was supposed at first that this would be a serious obstacle. But the EU is aware that Transnistria is not a one-day affair. It is quite a longtime problem. So, Europe has begun to really cooperate with Moldova which has in turn begun to show real results – for example, in visa-free treatment. It is two years ago that Moldova introduced biometric passports. In 2014 the Republic of Moldova was officially granted a visa-free regime with EU countries. When Moldova was negotiating a free trade area, it invited Transnistrians to take part, but they said they could only be observers, not participants. Now they seem to want this, for they are aware of being likely to have product supply problems after 2015, but they are officially saying that they wish to have a direct relationship with the EU without Chisinau. They are thus driving themselves into a deadlock. Their economy is anyway in dire straits. They exist owing to Russian subsidies. Their state budget deficit is more than 60 percent.”

Ye.M.: “In other words, the factor of Transnistria as an unsettled territory is not an obstacle for Moldova for integration into Europe?”

S.P.: “No, it isn’t. Ukraine should also take it into account. But Moldova has another underlying problem, for not all of its politicians wish to move towards the European Union.”

Ye.M.: “As Transnistria is a frozen conflict on the border with Ukraine and Crimea is also going to be a frozen conflict, what are the prospects, with due account of Ukrainian interests and OSCE effectiveness, on the one hand, and the influence of Russia, on the other, that the Donbas conflict will remain frozen and what can the West, in the person of OSCE that is taking part in the 5+2 format, do to counterpoise this?”

S.P.: “The 5+2 format is the two sides of the Chisinau-Tiraspol conflict, the intermediaries Russia, Ukraine, and, to some extent, OSCE, and two observers, the US and the EU, which have no right to vote. Essentially, Russia is a side that always opposes, and Transnistria is in fact following Russia’s instructions. And they all form a whole in 5+2. Ukraine behaves more neutrally but, if necessary, it opposes Russia or Transnistria. This is why Transnistrians have been saying lately that Ukraine is siding with Moldova in this conflict. Among those who are saying this is also Transnistria representative Nina Shtanski who carefully follows all the Russian scenarios. She earned a doctorate at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, defending a Ph.D. dissertation on the Transnistria conflict. Shtanski was Shevchuk’s election campaign manager, and the Russians view her as the chief opponent of Chisinau. As Chisinau has taken a very modest, or even inactive, stand in the Transnistrian settlement, she sometimes outplays them tactically.”

“TRANSNISTRIANS ARE MAPPING OUT A STRATEGY TO OUST UKRAINE FROM THE 5+2 FORMAT”

Ye.M.: “Does this mean that the EU and the US consider the low activity of Chisinau as indication that this is not a very important problem, which will cause us a serious discomfort because the Transnistria crisis may be fueled again?”

S.P.: “I think this is true to a certain extent – especially now that we have begun to combat corruption in all spheres, including the border. It is rather sensitive for Transnistria, and they are now alleging that Ukraine is not performing its function as an intermediary because it does not meet its commitments to forestall artificial obstacles to a free cross-border movement of goods and people. As we have shut the border to almost all the 150,000 holders of Russian passports, who reside in Transnistria, it produces a tangible effect. Besides, the customs office began to carefully examine such excise-dutiable items as cigarettes and alcoholic drinks, which is the main source of profit for local officials. So, they are mapping out a strategy to oust Ukraine from the 5+2 format under the pretext that our state is not performing the function of a mediator.”

Ye.M.: “And what can you say about the role of OSCE as an institution in the light of its behavior in the Donbas?”

S.P.: “I worked with three OSCE Mission heads in Moldova. When I arrived, the head was the American O’Neil who knew the Russian language well. He wanted to work actively. Russia did not like it, and he was declared persona non grata. He used to collect Soviet prewar placards. He bought some placards when he stayed in Russia. When customs officers asked him to show them, he was told they were of cultural value and he had no permission from the Russian ministry of culture to carry them abroad. O’Neil was accused of smuggling and declared persona non grata in Russia. He was dismissed from this office. Traditionally, the office of OSCE Mission head in Moldova is held by an American. He was replaced by Jennifer Brush who had experience in settling Balkan conflicts. She decided in a straightforward American way that the same approach would be acceptable to resolve the Transnistria crisis. She touched off a storm of indignation on the part of Transnistrian leaders, particularly, Nina Shtanski who succeeded, with Moscow’s help, in having Ms. Brush recalled. Now a new US representative, Michael Scanlan, has taken over. An experienced expert, he is taking rather a cautious approach in order to avoid conflicts.

“The mandate of this mission was once coordinated with Tiraspol by way of exchanging letters between Smirnov and the OSCE leadership in Vienna. It was agreed that mission representatives were free to visit Transnistria without any limitations or obstructions. But now Transnistria has imposed a regulation on the mission’s diplomats, which allows them to go to that territory on at least a few days’ official notice to its ‘ministry of foreign affairs.’ In some cases they take part in the work of the Joint Control Commission and supervise the situation in the Security Zone. Tension usually arises when it is necessary to go there immediately. So, OSCE representatives have begun to refuse to visit the conflict zone. In other words, the mission no longer works actively.

“All they are doing now is moderating negotiations. In addition to the 5+2 format, there is also 1+1, when political representatives of the parties to the conflict meet, as a rule, at the OSCE offices in Bender, Tiraspol, and Chisinau. They meet alternately on one territory or another. These meetings have not been held in the past few months. As there was an election campaign in Moldova, the Transnistrians made a pause. They have also come out against 5+2 negotiations two or three times, and no talks were held in 2014.

“It is Serbia that has taken over the OSCE presidency this year. The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the Transnistrian Settlement Process, Radojko Bogojevic, who is concurrently Serbia’s ambassador to Poland, hopes that full-fledged 5+2 negotiations will be resumed, but it will not be easy to do so.”

“IF THERE WAS NO UKRAINE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND TRANSNISTRIA, THE RUSSIANS WOULD BE DOING THERE ALL THAT THEY PLEASED”

Ye.M.: “What can you say about the status of the former Russian 14th Army? Does Russia still have a legal chance to rapidly expand the bridgehead for this army, and what has in fact been left of that formation?”

S.P.: “As some of this army’s personnel were local residents, they have remained behind. The only Russian military unit that enjoys official status is a 1,200-strong peacekeeping contingent. Out of these, 600 to 800 are on duty in the Security Zone – they mostly guard bridges over the Dniester. The rest guard ammunition storehouses in the village of Kolbasna. But Smirnov once said that, as long as these stores were on the territory of Transnistria, all the items kept there were the property of Transnistria. To prevent Russia from taking this ammunition away at its own will, the Transnistrian authorities have placed their own guards around these storehouses.”

Ye.M.: “Does this mean that if Russia suddenly decides to render urgent assistance to the Russian-speaking population, it will not have to bring in a lot of weapons and ammunition?”

S.P.: “You are right about weapons. Transnistria has a several-thousand-strong army of its own, it has tanks and APCs. But, as there are almost 150,000 holders of Russian passports there, they can rapidly form at least one full-fledged military contingent. There are people there, who saw service in Afghanistan and various hot spots. Besides, there are some Cossacks who have stayed there since the 1990s. These Cossacks, presumably from the Krasnodar Territory, are taking an active stand.

“If there was no Ukraine between Russia and Transnistria, the Russians would be doing there all that they pleased because Moldova is unable to control this 452-km-long segment of the Ukrainian-Moldovan state border – it is longer than near Ilovaisk in the Donbas. Only in December 2009, when I was the ambassador, Ukraine began the demarcation and has almost finished it on its territory. We have already demarcated 448 km of the border as of today.”

ON THE “FIFTH COLUMN” AND RUSSIAN MENTALITY

M.S.: “Can Moldova join the EU without Transnistria?”

S.P.: “Moldova has signed the EU Association Agreement without asking Transnistria’s permission. They can likewise join the EU, although there is still a long way to go – they have not yet implemented the Association Agreement. Yet Moldova has said it wants to apply for membership in 2015 and expects to enter the EU in 2019-2020. If we recall that the EU failed to give Ukraine a membership prospect in the three years of negotiations, they are not likely to hasten in the case of Moldova either. In general, the EU has already granted Moldova a visa-free regime and signed an agreement with it – so the question of admission also depends on the EU.

“The tactics Russia is employing in Moldova differs from the one it uses in Ukraine. They are exerting a direct military, economic, political, and informational pressure on us. But in the case of Moldova they have chosen the opposition as a factor of influence and begin to form the ‘fifth column,’ offering them material and informational support. This is aimed at making Moldova break up without any foreign interference. And there are ample grounds for this: almost 50 percent of the population is chary of the European choice, and their unwillingness to support this choice is stronger than among a similar category of people in Ukraine. They predominantly show a Soviet mentality and mistrust towards the pro-European politicians.

“You can see a scaled-down Soviet Union in Transnistria. Support for paternalism among the populace is a scenario of our eastern neighbor. New generations are being brought up in the Soviet, not the European, spirit. They can’t see the world because if they want to leave this territory, they need an official passport – be it Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian, or Romanian.”