The border crossing on the Ukrainian-Moldovan frontier between Odessa and Chisinau is like most – a muddy lot manned by bored soldiers. After a car leaves the Ukrainian checkpoint, a tricolor billboard greets passengers: ‘Welcome to the Dniestrian Republic of Moldavia.’
A smaller, less hospitable sign clarifies: ‘Those who remain on the republic’s territory 24 hours without Interior Ministry registration are here illegally.’
A young man in a shabby, oversized greatcoat flags down the car. He has no insignia of rank, and carries a Kalashnikov rifle lazily slung over his shoulder. ‘Wait here,’ he instructs, adding an expectant, ‘Any cigarettes?’
A pack of Prima filter-tips is doled out, and the ‘customs officer’ arrives. He wears for his uniform a pair of surplus overalls, but doesn’t stop to angle for smokes. The car needs a transit permit, he notes, and the passengers require Dniestrian insurance.
While he inspects the trunk, his deputy escorts passengers to the ‘insurance office,’ a small trailer on cinder blocks.
Inside the office, other drivers are lining up for the various permits that the breakaway republic charges for crossing its territory – a mere sliver of land between the Dniester River and Ukraine, 24 kilometers wide on the Odessa-Chisinau highway. The ‘insurance policy’ costs $10.
A poster of General Aleksandr Lebed presides over the room. Under his inimitable grin, the caption reads, ‘This is our land!’
In 1992, Lebed rose to prominence as the commander of the Russian 14th Army, hailed at the time as a ‘peacekeeping force’ that restored order to the region after a spasm of armed conflict between Slav separatists in Tiraspol and Moldova’s newly independent government in Chisinau.
The war, which claimed at least 700 lives, ended without any settlement over the status of the territory. It also launched Lebed’s political career – the present governor of Krasnoyarsk and perennial campaigner for the Russian presidency made his name here as the defender of beleaguered Russians.
The breakaway government, led by Igor Smirnov, remains unrecognized and, besides collecting tolls, shows little evidence of aspiring to real statehood. A drive through the region, however, reveals the real power that props up the secession, and it is the 14th Army.
Tiny as the region is, it is easy to get lost there. Most road signs have been pulled down or painted over, and visitors unfamiliar with the roads inevitably will collide with a 14th Army roadblock.
Russian army checkpoints are considerably more formidable than the Dniestrian border crossing, with an armored transport vehicle at each end and anti-tank barriers.
Over Tashlyk, helicopter gunships are in the air, and along the road parallel with the Dniester river, columns of trucks with signal equipment are visible. The 14th Army is an uncomfortable presence for Ukraine; Russia resupplies the 14th Army by air over Ukrainian territory, and it maintains a staging area right on Ukraine’s southwestern border.
Russia has withdrawn 3,900 troops from the Dniester region, but the military hardware still bunkered in the region is the real obstacle to negotiations.
Moldova is committed to granting some form of autonomy to the region, but insists first on withdrawal of the Russian forces.
Russia, for its part, says it cannot pull out its troops until Chisinau and Tiraspol come to a settlement.
In other words, Smirnov can prolong the 14th Army’s presence indefinitely, and it is obvious Smirnov will never make such a decision without the army’s consent.
Recently, multilateral talks initiated by the Kuchma administration between Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and representatives of the Dniester Republic flopped after Smirnov and company failed to show.
It is still unclear who torpedoed the talks, but it is obvious that both Russia and the Dniester Republic have a mutual interest in blocking any resolution.
If the 14th Army withdrew, Russia would lose its ‘window to the Balkans,’ and Smirnov’s ragged republic would lose the rights to collect tolls on this stretch of the turnpike. Under the 14th Army’s roof, the region has become a haven for contraband, especially cigarette and liquor smuggling.
In fact, the only evidence of commerce are those tractor trailers throttling down the road to Odessa.
The Dniestrian ‘capital,’ Tiraspol, is an utterly charmless oblast center, and the region looks like a Soviet enclave frozen in time.
The argument that the 14th Army keeps peace is a dubious one. Most observers of the 1992 conflict pointed out that the 14th Army was far from neutral, lending weapons and technical support, and in some cases, officers, to the secessionists. By effecting a controlled escalation, the Dniester forces easily outgunned Moldovan police and army units.
Ukraine is the only of the GUAM (Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova) states to have avoided a Russian-backed insurrection on its territory.
As the senior partner in this alliance, Ukraine has shown an interest in resolving these ‘frozen conflicts,’ most recently calling for talks on the status of Abkhazia, in Georgia, where Russia has backed another insurgency.
Russia’s unwillingness to withdraw the 14th Army, however, shows that it does not take the sovereignty of these states seriously.
