Ukraine to strengthen border with Transnistria

[Hindustani78]

Ukraine to strengthen border with Transnistria| Ukrinform
KYIV, March 18 /Ukrinform/. Ukraine has developed the program to strengthen the borders in "dangerous areas", particularly in Odesa and Kherson regions.

First deputy head of the Presidential Administration Vitaliy Kovalchuk has said this at a briefing in Kyiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Today it is necessary to distinguish between construction of fortifications and strengthening the border areas, where we can expect the risk. It is clear that the program to strengthen dangerous border areas in certain regions of the country, including in Odesa and Kherson regions, has been developed," Kovalchuk said.

 

[Hindustani78]

Russia’s Next Target - WSJ

A military drill in another breakaway region—this time in Moldova.

ENLARGE
Ukrainian border guards stand at a checkpoint at the border with Moldova breakaway Transnistria region in March 2014. Photo: Yevgeny Volokin/Reuters
April 9, 2015 7:39 p.m. ET

Russian forces on Thursday conducted a drill near Moldova, the small, Kremlin-menaced nation wedged between Ukraine and Romania. According to Russian news agencies, 400 Russian troops participated in exercises in Transnistria, a breakaway territory of Moldova populated by ethnic Russians. They fired 100,000 rounds of ammunition.

Having annexed Crimea and pocketed Western concessions in eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is eyeing the territory stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea that Moscow considers its rightful imperial domain. Mr. Putin is also sending a warning to Moldovans to abandon their dreams of Western integration.

The choice of location for the Red Army’s latest drill is significant. Transnistria—a narrow strip of land on the eastern side of the River Dniester—is sovereign Moldovan territory but is overwhelmingly ethnic Russian. It broke away soon after Moldova declared sovereignty in 1990 amid the Soviet Union’s collapse. No United Nations member-state recognizes Transnistria’s ruling regime.

Two years later Moldova made a failed attempt to retake the territory in a war that killed 1,500 people. Since then, around 1,000 Russian troops have been stationed in the territory, despite Moscow’s promise to redeploy them by 2002.

Cursed with corrupt politics and a labyrinthine parliamentary structure, Moldova remains one of Europe’s poorest countries. Even so, a majority of Moldovan voters have in the past three parliamentary elections opted for liberal, pro-Western governments. The current Prime Minister, Chiril Gaburici, appointed in February, is a pro-Western businessman who wants closer ties to the European Union.

Moscow has already punished Moldovans for seeking closer ties with the West by banning imports of Moldovan wine in 2013 and Moldovan fruit in 2014—each time on bogus health-related pretexts and each time close to Moldovan-EU summits and accords.

Thursday’s military exercises are intended to create the impression Mr. Putin might take more drastic action to subdue the defiant country. It would be nice to suppose that the West’s response to such action would be tougher than what it has so far been in Ukraine. We aren’t counting on it.

 

[munchkin]

Such a breakaway region prevents Moldova from joining NATO which does not take any country that has disputed territories. Moldova would never give up such as a big territory.