[HN Gopher] What does Moscow want with Moldova?
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What does Moscow want with Moldova?
Author : rntn
Score : 63 points
Date : 2023-02-25 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| robswc wrote:
| I have extended family from there. They escaped the worst of
| communism decades ago and I remember only a few years ago they
| mentioned how they finally think that Moldova has a chance to
| progress. Tragic all around.
| watwut wrote:
| To make it Russia. To expand wherever and as far as possible.
| Ideally at least up to eastern Germany as it belonged to them
| when Putin was young and worked there.
| syzarian wrote:
| I think the answer is as simple as a megalomaniacal desire for a
| return to the glory of Russia. Russia has never been stably non
| expansionist and it is Europe's last colonial empire. While
| Gorbachev was OK with the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact he
| did not envision freedom for Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine
| and other former Soviet republics.
| vkou wrote:
| Gorbachev definitely did not envision it, but he certainly
| wasn't going to start killing tens and hundreds of thousands of
| people over it.
|
| There's a reason his legacy is that of a persona-non-grata in
| today's Russia.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| To be fair, Yeltsin and the Russian nationalists were fine
| with letting these countries go their own way and breaking up
| the Soviet Union as a way of getting an independent Russia as
| a consequence.
|
| Their problem was always the suppression of Russian
| nationalism in the Soviet Union.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| "Why is Russia interested in a strategically valuable nation
| bordering a nation they are currently at war with? Must be
| Putin's ego."
| corbulo wrote:
| It's amazing to me how consistently the refusal is to think
| people you don't like might be rational. It leads to repeated
| underestimation. they're doing the people they don't like a
| favor by attributing everything to projected emotions.
|
| Just look at a terrain map with roads. Exits (or entrances)
| from the Carpathian mountains are incredibly important to
| control. They've been strategically important for literal
| millennia.
| chasil wrote:
| Oddly enough, I had mentioned Transnistria to several
| Russians and Ukrainians that I knew after Russia's first
| incursion.
|
| They had no idea where it is, while strenuously asserting
| that the West should stay out of the conflict, and mind its
| own business.
|
| Transnistria is a huge fortress in Eastern Europe that can
| act as a platform for many of Russia's goals. It has not yet
| been called into action because it is too valuable.
| badrabbit wrote:
| The argument russia uses is "strategic buffer". However, the
| west was not putin's enemy before putin started invading
| countries.
|
| The answer in my opinion is that like the US Russia's leader's
| are too old. When you're older 20-30 years is like a few years
| passing by. To putin it was not so long ago when NATO agreed
| not to expand eastward but also when Russia agreed to Ukraine's
| independence in exchange for them giving up nukes.
|
| After Iraq and Afghanistan, Putin knew that it was the right
| time to start invading, because the one critical weakness of
| America is it's dependence of the will of the people to start
| and continue to fight a war. America is still weary of "boots
| on ground". That's why he didn't envision so much western
| support for Ukraine because he would assume the west would not
| risk a possible escalation to war, but the west is able to go
| all the way up to the red line and all but cross it.
|
| Russian leaders and Putin in particular believe that the only
| way to be great, given their vast territory and relatively
| small population and the only way to have the home land of
| western Russia prosper is by having strategic advantage over
| others. Primarily, this means dominating its neighbors but also
| interfering in random countries (much like the US) as well.
|
| I believe until Hillary Clinton screwed up the relationship
| with Putin as Obama's secretary of state he was open to the
| idea of being freinds with the west, so long as they let him be
| a good old dictator and do whatever he wants.
|
| Hillary (and by proxy Obama) made the mistake of trying to
| force human rights, democracy, gay rights,etc... which meant
| being critical of Russia, meanwhile pushing THAAD to eastern
| NATO countries in a time of peace.
|
| What was the expectation? For putin to go down like Gadaffi? To
| have a russian arab spring and Putin quietly retire to his
| Yacht? Come on!
|
| The west could not tolerate Putin nor could it stop interfering
| with Russias internal matters including the whole Chechnya
| thing which even to regular Russians that made them upset
| against the west.
|
| So in my opinion, Putin had two choices, accept western
| influence and eventually allow for a democratic Russia with
| liberal western ideals and cede power and influence over the
| oligarchs (who also don't want democracy or western liberalism)
| and militarily, imagine being a nuclear power and your
| neighbors have ICBM interceptors which meant neutering your
| nuclear capability (imagine russia having those in mexico and
| canada) which is obviously an act of agression he would have to
| tolerate. The second option would be to resist.
|
| I can't support Putin's invasions of course but the west
| cornered a bear and everyone acts shocked when the bear starts
| mawling everyone near it.
|
| It is pure western dishonest propaganda to say Putin like
| Hitler just wants more territory and will invade all of europe
| if no one stops him. Even if he controlled all of eastern
| Europe western expansion means nuclear war. At best he will
| invade all eastern europe countries that are not nato members
| with the exception of Poland,Finland and sweden.
|
| Do you know why he interfered in the 2016 elections so much?
| Because freaking Hillary Clinton who already pissed him off
| with arrogant western expansion/interference and disrespect was
| about to become president, so he recruits a rich new york
| asshole that's been in bed with the Russian mob since the early
| 90s and you know the rest of the story.
|
| The one single act of this century that will reshape the power
| dynamics of world super powers (and possibly a lot more than
| that) is the democratic party's insistence on nominating
| Hillary Clinton who emodies a special brand neo-liberal
| "manifest destiny" . Bernie would tell putin to go f himself
| but would not put THAAD in eastern europe or demand democracy
| in russia knowing full well that means deposing and agitating
| the current dictator of Russia.
|
| Pride and arrogance comes before downfall.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| You're complete ignoring the will of the Ukrainian people in
| your effort to provide cover for a genocidal lunatic.
|
| >Pride and arrogance comes before downfall.
|
| Describes the current situation quite well! I'm sure Putin
| thought those backwater Ukrainians will bend the knee to
| Russias "superior military might". Putin's invasion of
| Ukraine is one of the greatest foreign policy blunders of the
| past 50 years
| badrabbit wrote:
| > You're complete ignoring the will of the Ukrainian people
| in your effort to provide cover for a genocidal lunatic.
|
| When did I do that? I clearly said I don't support his
| invasions but I won't accept bullshit propaganda either.
|
| What is with people like you? You don't want to understand
| your enemy just make them look like monsters without a
| brain so everyone supports anything you say right? Well
| this isn't fb, it is HN so I making a critical attempt to
| understand Putin, you can't defeat an enemy you don't
| understand.
|
| > Putin's invasion of Ukraine is one of the greatest
| foreign policy blunders of the past 50 years
|
| I agree!
| walterbell wrote:
| Ohio State backgrounder on Transnistria,
| https://origins.osu.edu/read/transnistria-history-behind-rus...
|
| _> ... ethnic migration resulted in its current ethnic
| diversity: 158,000 Russians (33.8%), 153,500 Moldovans (33.2%),
| and 124,200 Ukrainians (26.7%). Throughout the Soviet period,
| these ethnic populations lived in harmony, freely speaking their
| respective languages and intermarrying. Thus, nationalism was
| traditionally an unappealing ideology to the multi-ethnic
| communities of Transnistria.
|
| > ... The Transnistrians of 1989 and 1990 were not part of a
| grand Russian strategy to destabilize Moldova. Rather, the
| protests and independence referendums in these years were
| grassroots efforts by a multi-ethnic population, which felt
| threatened by Moldovan nationalism and pan-Romanianism. Only in
| the years after these actions did Moscow begin to exploit the
| conflict. As ties with Russia increased, Russian chauvinism
| usurped true linguistic equality and multiculturalism in
| Transnistria._
| passterby wrote:
| wasn't there supposed to be a large supply warehouse of
| ammunition in that region of Transnistria??
| 323 wrote:
| This article is omitting a lot of facts, like the multiple times
| Russia tried to implement coups in Moldova to bring Russian-
| aligned people to power.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > The result was a frozen conflict, with pro-Moscow forces
| ruling Transnistria, a narrow strip of land in the east of
| Moldova that is home to many Russian speakers, for more than
| three decades.
|
| These folks aren't just Russian speaking, they are ethnic
| Russians that have been living there for hundreds of years.
|
| As Moldova vacillated between Russia and Romania, these people
| are caught in the middle.
| watwut wrote:
| Ethinc minority being there does not entitle Russia to take
| land or try to impose own rule.
|
| If it did, only logical reaction would be to deport all
| Russians from everywhere abroad.
| roundandround wrote:
| These deported people would still be very dangerous for the
| states that deported them, perhaps even more so with
| grievances and a wrong that Russia could fix.
|
| Putin's paranoia is that other states reason like him and
| understand him as well as he thinks he understands them.
| Putin would engage in genocide in their position hence
| Ukraine was a Nazi state.
| watwut wrote:
| Not really. It does not matter what other states do as
| long ad it is not submission like from Belarus goverment.
| Ukraine invasion was not about Nazi and that talking
| point was abandoned long time ago.
|
| And it had zero to do with Russian speaking Ukrainians or
| Russian minority too.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Only 29% of Transnistria is Russian ethnicity. It doesn't
| give Moscow the right to foment war in any of its diaspora,
| including Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan,
| Georgia, etc.
| notch898a wrote:
| Honestly I get the impression Transnistria gives lots of
| bad people, or good people who just like to do illegal
| things, plausible deniability. Moldova could retake it easy
| enough, but why eliminate a great smuggling route and cash
| haven. It would be like the US and Mexico actually trying
| to snuff out the cartel areas, of course they're not going
| to do that when it's so profitable not to.
| chasil wrote:
| No, Transnistria could actually take Moldova.
|
| However, in the grand scheme, this would not be an
| efficient use of resources.
|
| "An upgrade to the virtually unarmed Moldovan military,
| which received its first Piranha armored vehicles from
| Germany a few weeks ago, is also on the table.
|
| "At present, the country could hardly defend itself even
| against the separatists in Transnistria, who probably
| have dozens of battle tanks and other heavy military
| equipment, along with the large stocks of ammunition.
| Ukraine has therefore offered to provide military
| assistance if Moscow and the separatists provoke a
| conflict. But any suggestion that Ukraine is planning a
| military intervention in Moldova is absurd and at best a
| pretext for the Kremlin to justify its belligerence.
| Ukraine can certainly do without committing its military
| resources to a second front."
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > Moldova could retake it easy enough
|
| Well most of the world doesn't have the horrific Russian
| state mindset. To us civilized ones, disrupting the
| generally reasonable status quo to blow people up into
| submission is very wrong.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| The suck thing is after the current war is done they'll all
| be forced to leave just like ethnic Germans got forced out
| of Eastern European countries after WWII.
| [deleted]
| Georgelemental wrote:
| I'm sceptical of the narrative here, that Russia is planning
| something in Moldova. Putin couldn't even hold Kherson; how could
| he possibly reinforce Transnistria or start an offensive from
| there? Yes, he has made a lot of terrible decisions, but even for
| him this would be unusually idiotic.
| moremetadata wrote:
| The Black Sea Naval Control.
|
| Putin offers something very attractive to the poor, shared oil
| wealth which is why he's been going after the oligarchs who took
| their wealth abroad. 2nd or 3rd largest global oil reserves can
| be found there. Saudi Arabia and the Middle East is too unstable
| and running dry.
|
| The Anglo-Saxon model of wide wealth distribution will be used
| against the West.
|
| https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-the-b...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| ...but Russia is more stable?
| watwut wrote:
| Well, it is stable actually. Pretty disgusting stability, but
| like, you can't say it is unstable.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's no more or less stable than the other countries named.
| jacobriis wrote:
| Moldova isn't on the Black Sea.
| moremetadata wrote:
| 10 February 2023
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64595322
|
| Moldova's government has collapsed and its pro-EU prime
| minister has stepped down after 18 months of political and
| economic turbulence.
|
| Europe's poorest country was struggling with "multiple
| crises", outgoing PM Natalia Gavrilita said on Friday.
|
| With the war raging in neighbouring Ukraine, Moldova has been
| facing inflation, high energy prices, a refugee influx and
| Russian aggression.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=oil+in+yuan
|
| https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-
| insight...
|
| "China, the world's largest buyer of crude, has opened the
| door to trading crude oil and natural gas in its local
| currency, rather than the Dollar"
| jacobriis wrote:
| Moldova still isn't on the Black Sea
| notch898a wrote:
| But it is on the R. Danube, which through a network of
| channels would connect them to the Alps and allow an
| assault on Liechtenstein.
| dylan604 wrote:
| what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
| Scarbutt wrote:
| Transnistria has access to the Black Sea through a river.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| - The Black Sea Naval Control.
|
| That's what Crimea is for.
|
| Not really sure what to say about the bit with the "shared" oil
| wealth. Is that something he has ever offered to "the poor"
| over the past 25 years that he has been in power?
| api wrote:
| Russia's wealth divide is wider than most of Europe and very
| close to the USA:
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coef...
|
| There isn't a big difference here.
| kunagi7 wrote:
| To fully control the Black Sea Russia needs control over
| Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia (in that order).
| 3 of them are NATO members [0] and the other two are already
| under western influence. Try to mess with any of them and the
| III World War will be ignited.
|
| Moldova is almost useless (for that purpose) unless its used to
| invade Western Ukraine and Romania. They control an impressive
| 0 meters of Black Sea coast and a whopping 500 meters of
| Danube's left bank.
|
| The Black Sea is already controlled by Turkey (and NATO). Thank
| the Montreux convention [1] for that. Turkey's fleet is several
| times bigger (compared to Russian's presence on the Black Sea)
| and unlike Russian's they can move freely and expand its
| capabilities faster. Russia can't even effectively block grain
| ships parting from Odessa.
|
| Moldova is under Kremlin's radar since its independence thanks
| to the breakaway territory of Transnistria. The region is a hot
| mess thanks to USSR policies of changing borders of its
| republics at whim without caring about the local population.
| The consequences of USSR's fall did a huge damage to Eastern
| Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. Some regions have already
| recovered like the Baltic states or Poland. Transnistria, like
| Crimea or Ukraine used to be part of the Russian Empire since
| they conquered both of them to the Ottoman Empire and the
| Tatars. Its population was and is a mixture of Ukrainians,
| Moldovans and Russians. Ukraine and Crimea have their fair
| share of history compared to Transnistria though. And
| obviously, there's not an easy solution to this problem.
|
| [0] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/nato_countries.htm [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...
| rvnx wrote:
| Just one note about Article 5 "ironclad commitment" and
| WWIII.
|
| The article 5 says: "The Parties agree that an armed attack
| against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall
| be considered an attack against them all and [...] each of
| them,[...] will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by
| taking forthwith, [...] such action as it deems necessary"
|
| It doesn't mean at all that if there is an invasion by
| unmarked troops coming from Belarus into Poland that
| Washington is going to send all the nukes on Moscow.
|
| For example, they could consider appropriate reaction to send
| financial "support" (like a loan), but they don't have to
| declare or enter total war (which is a common misconception).
| olliej wrote:
| To be the USSR again. Thus is not hard - trying to ascribe any
| other rationale is just trying to rationalize supporting Putin.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Just ridiculous. I can oppose Russia's invasion while still
| understanding the national interests that led them to make the
| move.
| nimbius wrote:
| If they are, they could take a page from chinas belt and road
| effort. The ussr was dissolved by a coward who didn't want to
| put in the effort to maintain glasnost and wasn't competent
| enough to engage satellite states for reforms and concerns. Not
| that you could blame him, as Brezhnev was keen on nuking the
| most unruly satellites as a solution and Yeltsin was a
| nationalist looking to russify the whole continent or isolate
| the nation entirely. At the end of the day Russian elites were
| too disconnected and disillusioned to care about the Union.
|
| Putin's nostalgia for it, while admirable, is bumbling
| desperation at best.
| visarga wrote:
| > Putin's nostalgia for it, while admirable
|
| tth_tth
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| [flagged]
| watwut wrote:
| So? How ethnic Russians anywhere entitle Russia to invade
| exactly? And what do you think would happened to minorities
| everywhere if that logic would be bought?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The question was "what does Moscow want with Moldova?" Not
| "is Russia entitled to invade/install a friendly regime in
| Moldova?"
| watwut wrote:
| In that case, Russians or Russian speaking don't matter.
| They are an excuse, but not necessary for Moscow to do what
| they want.
| [deleted]
| Ankaios wrote:
| If any of them want to live in Russia, they can move there.
|
| I wouldn't recommend that right now, though.
| tstrimple wrote:
| By this logic, the US should be justifiably invaded by a dozen
| other countries at least.
| mariosisters wrote:
| Nobody justified anything.
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