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You're wrong, the Russians intervened when the rebel forces where losing ground against constitutional forces of R. of Moldova. And while doing so they invented

You're wrong, the Russians intervened when the rebel forces where losing ground against constitutional forces of R. of Moldova. And while doing so they invented stories of a "genocide". Basically, if you follow the Donbass events, the propaganda is the same.

Steko 11y ago
Russia has had 20 years to annex Transnistria if they wanted it, not remotely the same as Crimea IMHO. The "constitutional forces of the R. of Moldova" were not a professional army but a mixture of police and hastily armed militia that included ultranationalist elements who were encouraging expulsion/cleansing of non-Moldovans. There were real fears that these "constitutional forces" would do the same sorts of things as the Serbian "constitutional forces" were doing to Yugoslavian separatists.
- mootothemax 11y ago
  >Russia has had 20 years to annex Transnistria if they wanted it, not remotely the same as Crimea IMHO. (I'm only bringing this up because I think it's interesting, not to dispute anything you've written) The Russian move into Ukraine seems to have some medium-to-long term planning behind it. For example, there were reports back in 2008 of Russia handing out passports to residents of Crimea: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/2575421/Russia-distributing-passports-in-the-Crimea.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/257... Also interestingly, the article above specifically mentions the passport tactic being used in the other notorious breakaway republics of Abhkazia and South Ossetia.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    In fairness, if the rest of the world accepted passports of Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there would be considerably less justification for Russia providing them Russian citizenship, though Transnistrians don't have any difficulty obtaining Moldovan passports if they want them. (Russia had a pretext for granting Russian passports to Crimeans too, since a right of dual citizenship was established in Ukraine's short-lived original constitutional arrangement with the region.) Russia has never particularly disguised its belief that Crimea is an integral, historical and important part of its territory, whereas any limited value Transnistria has to Russia probably involves the Russian presence there remaining in a supportive, "peacekeeping" role as a symbol of Russia's reliability as an ally. That said, it notably hasn't formally recognised Transnistrian statehood, and is well aware most Transnistrians would welcome annexation (they had a referendum) if it could be achieved peacefully.
- plextoria 11y ago
  Moldova did not have a professional army at the time because it was in the process of leaving the Soviet Union. The only reason Transnistria exists is for Russia to exert influence on the politics of Moldova. Read the "Primakov memorandum of 1997": "3. Transdniestria shall participate in the conduct of the foreign policy of the Republic of Moldova - a subject of international law - on questions touching its interests. Decision of such questions shall be taken by agreement of the Parties." In other words, Russia participates in the conduct of the foreign policy of the Republic of Moldova on questions touching its interests. An independent Transnistria will not offer the same advantages, and an Russian exclave between Ukraine and Moldova would hardly prove itself economically or militarily viable.
  - Steko 11y ago
    > Moldova did not have a professional army at the time because it was in the process of leaving the Soviet Union. Not under dispute. I cite lack of professionalism only because it's generally accepted to increase the likelihood of abuses. And I'm not saying any such abuses or war crimes or genocide happened (as soviet propaganda claims) or were even planned or likely. But I do genuinely think the danger was real and the Soviet troops that were there and intervened imho were not doing so because they wanted long term levers over Moldovan politics but because they had genuine immediate concerns for the ethnic Russian and Ukrainian residents (which in many cases included themselves). Note again: if Russia wanted to, the Russians could have they could have annexed them any time in the last 20-some years, they could have sued for independence easily but they just sued for peace. And 20-some years later, while there has been some violence, it has been relatively peaceful, certainly the complete opposite of (say) what we've seen from Russia in Chechnya. So that's why I believe that, in retrospect, the early Russian involvement was probably the right call. Perhaps there's a best case counterfactual scenario where Russian troops are called off and Moldovans end up killing a few hundred separtists and it's over (this is slightly fewer deaths than we saw historically). There's also much worse counterfactuals where the Moldovan irregulars engage in war crimes or the rebels hang on for years and you have long bloody sieges or they go underground and you have terrorist bombings that go on for decades and harsh Moldovan responses and maybe the Russian army gets involved anyway just thousands more end up dead.
- ajuc 11y ago
  Disclaimer- as a Pole I'm biased against Russia. IMHO Russia mostly wants influence on politics in all neighboring states. It only invaded Crimea and put army in Donbas in Ukraine when other ways to exert influence failed (Ukrainians did 2 revolutions, against all economic odds; it was clear Russian influence will end). Russia doesn't invade Belarus, because it already has control. Russia only invaded Georgia when they got dangerously close to "solve" the South Ossetia problem (another matter is how Georgians wanted to solve it). It's also present in Russian diplomatic language - "close abroad" is the term, and Russian diplomats say they have right to participate in the politics of the near abroad. Frozen conflicts are a good way to ensure these border states won't join EU/NATO which are still seen as enemy in Russia.
  - Steko 11y ago
    I don't disagree with any of this, I will just point out that "Russia does lots of bad things" does not imply "Russia only does bad things". I happen to believe, in this one small instance, Russia action may have minimized loss of life.
- userulluipeste 11y ago
  There was and still is a significant russian-speaking minority in the rest of Moldova and there wasn't any expulsion nor cleansing, despite the fact that since the fall of the Soviet Union they were always under full control and reach of that army that you're spreading fears about! Non-Moldovans? Guess what - unlike some other places, as one of the baltic republics, where the russian-speaking minority was left without a series of rights, in Moldova they received citizenship and minority rights! It there anything left to be said? Oh, yes - about annexation. You know what? Russia de facto already annexed Moldova, as they rule everything there and were successful in replacing almost completely the elements of romanian culture that existed there with russian ones!
  - Steko 11y ago
    > There was and still is a significant russian-speaking minority in the rest of Moldova and there wasn't any expulsion nor cleansing This is a silly argument. Not surprisingly, the Croatians living in Belgrade did not have cleansing/expulsion committed against them either, just the ones in say Croatia and Vojvodina (areas that declared independence).
    - userulluipeste 11y ago
      How is my argument silly? You gave me an example with different minorities treated differently in some other country whereas I was talking about the same russian-speaking common set of minorities treated exactly the same across this country (Moldova). The argument of russian minority discrimination is a common play of russian propaganda, and it is a baseless one.
      - Steko 11y ago
        Your argument is that 'no atrocity vs (resident minority not declaring independence)' implies there will be 'no atrocity vs (minority in separtist region)'. Many examples appear to disprove that. Complaining that I'm using other examples is even sillier and amounts to special pleading that your argument "only works with Moldovans and Russians". If you feel I'm mistating your argument feel free to restate it. Here's another formulation: 'fear is unfounded' BECAUSE 'no atrocity vs minority in rest of country' Is that not essentially the argument you're making? That is a general argument which can be disproven with specific counterexamples. I've offered one, Croatians in Belgrade. This counterexample leads us directly to reject the argument.

Steko 11y ago

Russia has had 20 years to annex Transnistria if they wanted it, not remotely the same as Crimea IMHO. The "constitutional forces of the R. of Moldova" were not a professional army but a mixture of police and hastily armed militia that included ultranationalist elements who were encouraging expulsion/cleansing of non-Moldovans. There were real fears that these "constitutional forces" would do the same sorts of things as the Serbian "constitutional forces" were doing to Yugoslavian separatists.

mootothemax 11y ago
>Russia has had 20 years to annex Transnistria if they wanted it, not remotely the same as Crimea IMHO. (I'm only bringing this up because I think it's interesting, not to dispute anything you've written) The Russian move into Ukraine seems to have some medium-to-long term planning behind it. For example, there were reports back in 2008 of Russia handing out passports to residents of Crimea: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/2575421/Russia-distributing-passports-in-the-Crimea.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/257... Also interestingly, the article above specifically mentions the passport tactic being used in the other notorious breakaway republics of Abhkazia and South Ossetia.
- notahacker 11y ago
  In fairness, if the rest of the world accepted passports of Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there would be considerably less justification for Russia providing them Russian citizenship, though Transnistrians don't have any difficulty obtaining Moldovan passports if they want them. (Russia had a pretext for granting Russian passports to Crimeans too, since a right of dual citizenship was established in Ukraine's short-lived original constitutional arrangement with the region.) Russia has never particularly disguised its belief that Crimea is an integral, historical and important part of its territory, whereas any limited value Transnistria has to Russia probably involves the Russian presence there remaining in a supportive, "peacekeeping" role as a symbol of Russia's reliability as an ally. That said, it notably hasn't formally recognised Transnistrian statehood, and is well aware most Transnistrians would welcome annexation (they had a referendum) if it could be achieved peacefully.
plextoria 11y ago
Moldova did not have a professional army at the time because it was in the process of leaving the Soviet Union. The only reason Transnistria exists is for Russia to exert influence on the politics of Moldova. Read the "Primakov memorandum of 1997": "3. Transdniestria shall participate in the conduct of the foreign policy of the Republic of Moldova - a subject of international law - on questions touching its interests. Decision of such questions shall be taken by agreement of the Parties." In other words, Russia participates in the conduct of the foreign policy of the Republic of Moldova on questions touching its interests. An independent Transnistria will not offer the same advantages, and an Russian exclave between Ukraine and Moldova would hardly prove itself economically or militarily viable.
- Steko 11y ago
  > Moldova did not have a professional army at the time because it was in the process of leaving the Soviet Union. Not under dispute. I cite lack of professionalism only because it's generally accepted to increase the likelihood of abuses. And I'm not saying any such abuses or war crimes or genocide happened (as soviet propaganda claims) or were even planned or likely. But I do genuinely think the danger was real and the Soviet troops that were there and intervened imho were not doing so because they wanted long term levers over Moldovan politics but because they had genuine immediate concerns for the ethnic Russian and Ukrainian residents (which in many cases included themselves). Note again: if Russia wanted to, the Russians could have they could have annexed them any time in the last 20-some years, they could have sued for independence easily but they just sued for peace. And 20-some years later, while there has been some violence, it has been relatively peaceful, certainly the complete opposite of (say) what we've seen from Russia in Chechnya. So that's why I believe that, in retrospect, the early Russian involvement was probably the right call. Perhaps there's a best case counterfactual scenario where Russian troops are called off and Moldovans end up killing a few hundred separtists and it's over (this is slightly fewer deaths than we saw historically). There's also much worse counterfactuals where the Moldovan irregulars engage in war crimes or the rebels hang on for years and you have long bloody sieges or they go underground and you have terrorist bombings that go on for decades and harsh Moldovan responses and maybe the Russian army gets involved anyway just thousands more end up dead.
ajuc 11y ago
Disclaimer- as a Pole I'm biased against Russia. IMHO Russia mostly wants influence on politics in all neighboring states. It only invaded Crimea and put army in Donbas in Ukraine when other ways to exert influence failed (Ukrainians did 2 revolutions, against all economic odds; it was clear Russian influence will end). Russia doesn't invade Belarus, because it already has control. Russia only invaded Georgia when they got dangerously close to "solve" the South Ossetia problem (another matter is how Georgians wanted to solve it). It's also present in Russian diplomatic language - "close abroad" is the term, and Russian diplomats say they have right to participate in the politics of the near abroad. Frozen conflicts are a good way to ensure these border states won't join EU/NATO which are still seen as enemy in Russia.
- Steko 11y ago
  I don't disagree with any of this, I will just point out that "Russia does lots of bad things" does not imply "Russia only does bad things". I happen to believe, in this one small instance, Russia action may have minimized loss of life.
userulluipeste 11y ago
There was and still is a significant russian-speaking minority in the rest of Moldova and there wasn't any expulsion nor cleansing, despite the fact that since the fall of the Soviet Union they were always under full control and reach of that army that you're spreading fears about! Non-Moldovans? Guess what - unlike some other places, as one of the baltic republics, where the russian-speaking minority was left without a series of rights, in Moldova they received citizenship and minority rights! It there anything left to be said? Oh, yes - about annexation. You know what? Russia de facto already annexed Moldova, as they rule everything there and were successful in replacing almost completely the elements of romanian culture that existed there with russian ones!
- Steko 11y ago
  > There was and still is a significant russian-speaking minority in the rest of Moldova and there wasn't any expulsion nor cleansing This is a silly argument. Not surprisingly, the Croatians living in Belgrade did not have cleansing/expulsion committed against them either, just the ones in say Croatia and Vojvodina (areas that declared independence).
  - userulluipeste 11y ago
    How is my argument silly? You gave me an example with different minorities treated differently in some other country whereas I was talking about the same russian-speaking common set of minorities treated exactly the same across this country (Moldova). The argument of russian minority discrimination is a common play of russian propaganda, and it is a baseless one.
    - Steko 11y ago
      Your argument is that 'no atrocity vs (resident minority not declaring independence)' implies there will be 'no atrocity vs (minority in separtist region)'. Many examples appear to disprove that. Complaining that I'm using other examples is even sillier and amounts to special pleading that your argument "only works with Moldovans and Russians". If you feel I'm mistating your argument feel free to restate it. Here's another formulation: 'fear is unfounded' BECAUSE 'no atrocity vs minority in rest of country' Is that not essentially the argument you're making? That is a general argument which can be disproven with specific counterexamples. I've offered one, Croatians in Belgrade. This counterexample leads us directly to reject the argument.