Transnistria hopes to open embassy in Kyiv
Vadim Krasnoselsky, head of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, has announced his intention to open embassies for his republic in Brussels and in Kyiv.
“The head of Transnistria’s government has instructed the ministry of foreign affairs to open official Transnistrian embassies in Kyiv and Brussels,” the republic’s foreign ministry reported.
However, the primary task of the Transnistrian foreign ministry is “to practically implement the national idea of Transnistria, which consists in strengthening the republic’s independence, aspiration towards international recognition, and the implementation of the results of the 2006 referendum”.
The unrecognized republic opened an embassy in Moscow at the end of January.
Transnistria is not recognized by Ukraine or any other UN member state. It is only recognized by three other partially or non-recognized states: South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Artsakh.
In 1992, the primarily Russian-speaking region of Transnistria unilaterally declared its independence from the rest of Moldova. The region receives significant political, economic and military assistance from Russia. After a brief war in 1992 in which roughly 1,200 people were killed, Chişinǎu finally lost control of the region. The separatists were supported in the fighting by individual soldiers and even entire divisions and units of the Russian army with their weapons and military equipment.
In 1992, on the basis of a bilateral Russian-Moldovan agreement on the administrative borders between Transnistria and the rest of Moldova, a peacekeeping operation was begun with Russian and Moldovan troops and armed formations.
International negotiations to resolve the conflict have been held in the 5+2 format (Moldova, Transnistria, Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE plus observers from the US and EU). A 1,400-strong group of Russian troops is stationed in Transnistria, and more than 20,000 tons of munitions are stored in the Cobasna commune in the north of the territory.
On 22 June 2018, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from Moldovan territory.