A breakaway region in Europe is asking Russia for protection. Here’s what to know
CNN
Pro-Russian rebels in a separatist sliver of Moldova have asked President Vladimir Putin to protect their region from what they claim are threats from Moldova’s pro-Western government.
Pro-Russian rebels in a separatist sliver of Moldova have asked President Vladimir Putin to protect their region from what they claim are threats from Moldova’s government. Transnistria, which illegally split from Moldova as the Soviet Union crumbled, has remained firmly within the Kremlin’s orbit while Moldova, which borders Ukraine, is bidding to join the European Union. In a special congress on Wednesday, politicians in Transnistria asked Moscow to guard it from “increasing pressure from Moldova,” and the Kremlin later said protecting its “compatriots” was a priority, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported. While the congress initially sparked fears that Moscow could press ahead with its longstanding plan to destabilize Moldova’s increasingly pro-Western government, Moldova dismissed it as “propaganda.” Here’s what you need to know. Meetings of Transnistria’s Congress of Deputies, a Soviet-era decision-making model, are rare but often significant. A Congress of Deputies gave birth to Transnistria in 1990, sparking a war between the Moscow-backed separatists and the fledgling Moldovan republic two years later.
