BRUSSELS – A series of explosions on Monday and Tuesday shook Transnistria, a small breakaway region within Moldova and bordering Ukraine, raising fears that the neighboring war could spill over into neighboring countries and escalate into a wider conflict.
On Tuesday, it remained unclear who was behind the attacks in Transnistria, a self-proclaimed republic allied with – and heavily dependent on – Russia. Local authorities there blamed Ukraine, while Ukraine accused Russia of organizing the bombings as a pretext for further aggression.
The Ukrainian military announced on Tuesday that Russian troops stationed in Transnistria have been put on high alert. Some Ukrainians have expressed fears that once Russia invades their country from the east, south and north, they could add a new front from Transnistria, attacking from the west.
Moldova, a former Soviet republic, said the blasts were still under investigation, although an interior ministry official said some initial evidence suggested Russian involvement.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, heavily armed separatists in Transnistria, where there is a significant minority of Russian-speakers, struggled to secede from Moldova. With Russian support, they effectively gained independence, but Transnistria is not officially internationally recognized.
There are at least 12,000 Russian troops stationed in Transnistria, up to 25 miles from Odessa, Ukraine’s main port and third largest city. Odessa is potentially a major target in Moscow’s stagnant efforts to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
A Russian general said last week that Russia intends to take control of a plot of land that extends not only to Crimea, the peninsula it took from Ukraine in 2014, but all the way to Transnistria. But it was unclear whether his statement reflected Kremlin policy.
The attacks in Transnistria were carried out against empty or unused buildings during a holiday and there were no casualties, Moldovan Deputy Interior Minister Sergio Diacono said. He said the explosions appeared to be an attempt to destabilize the country and were likely to serve as an excuse for a military response by Russia, rather than a serious attempt to do harm.
In addition, Mr Deacon said, the grenades used were made in Russia and used only by the armies of Russia, Transnistria and Gabon. He said of the attackers: “I don’t think it was the Gabonese.
However, Moldovan authorities have not accused Moscow of being behind the blasts. President Maya Sandu did not mention Russia when asked about the attacks on Tuesday, saying only that “there is tension between different forces in the regions interested in destabilizing the situation”.
There were three separate explosions, local authorities in Transnistria said. One is aimed at the building of the security agency in the capital Tiraspol. The other blasts hit a local airport and a radio station in the village of Mayak.
Vadim Krasnoselski, the president of the separatist government in Transnistria, called the explosions “terrorist attacks” and blamed Ukraine. “Traces of these attacks lead to Ukraine,” he said in a statement, without giving details. “I assume that those who organized this attack aim to involve Transnistria in the conflict.
For their part, Ukrainian authorities were quick to point the finger at Russia. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said its intelligence showed that the explosions were a “planned provocation” by Russia aimed at inciting “anti-Ukrainian sentiment.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said on Tuesday that “there are forces behind this that are not interested in regional stability and want to create another source of tension.” He did not say what those forces were.
Transnistria, with a mixed population of Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian speakers, has been a problem for the Moldovan government for more than three decades since retired Soviet military officers living there led the uprising.
“Transnistria was created artificially to keep Moldova threatened all the time,” said Alexandru Flencea, Moldova’s former deputy prime minister.
Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Moldovan authorities are increasingly concerned about the possibility of Russia activating its Transnistrian-based troops to attack Ukraine or invade a non-NATO or European Union Moldova with limited military forces. .
Mr Flenchea said the people ruling Transnistria may not be passionate about the war because it would hamper one of the region’s main economic activities, smuggling.
Julian Groza, head of the Institute for European Policy and Reform, a research institution in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, said a Russian invasion of Moldova did not seem inevitable. The Russians’ short-term goal, Groza said, appears to be to destabilize the region and undermine Moldova’s pro-European government.
Moldovans are worried about whether the threat of invasion is real or not. Many people reacted to the news of the Transnistrian explosions in the same way they reacted to the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine – fearing the worst.
“People are panicking again,” said Carmina Vicol, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Chisinau. “The worst case scenario is that the war starts here and breaks everything.
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed to a report from Tbilisi, Georgia.
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