Moldova already became a de facto member of NATO and those of its citizens who want to (re)join Romania already have dual citizenship so this is a moot issue by now but might still be interpreted by Russia as hinting at sinister intentions towards Transnistria that only the US could deter.
This was an excellent analysis of a very delicate situation that could develop between Moldova and Russia concerning Transnistria. One issue to note is that Moldovan President Maia Sandu continues a trend toward the feminization of European leaders where females make decisions based on feelings, emotions, and ideology. It is a dangerous path because without a return to genuine masculine leadership, the West will fail.
Indeed, though I think they are empty vessels for the string pullers. The fact that they are female just means that none of it has to make sense, skipping the rationalization tap dancing part of the act that male leaders generally have to do.
Essentially Europe is fallen under the control of the HR ladies -- a class of pure intermediaries.
not all women are bad, not all men are good; especially bad are women controlled by men or trying to look as one, and it's not the case for the moldovan president.
Russia has used Transnistria as a frozen-conflict lever, not treated it as a state to be fully recognized, but not willing to absorb it as an exclave like Kaliningrad. Prolonged political and economic stagnation doesn't seem great.
Transnistria is Russian. No one dare Russian territory. Moldova is of little significance. . It can do whay it wants. When Russia & Ukraine are united it would be best for Moldova to be independernt of Romania. NATO is not a power house. Various countries now in NATO are looking to get out of it. Russia + Ukraine are 50% of Europe.
for a while i though it could be used as a bargain chip for ukraine but, given that ukraine might prefer chernivtsi and southwestern odessa, that's not such a good idea. ukraine would be wise to at least keep moldova friendly and independent and let russians withdraw their army, weapons, industry and anything strategic, decreasing the romanian temptation because historically russia was never the enemy and romanians' intentions, expressed in hruscev, rakovski, cosor and kaganovich's holodomor, go beyond conquest, to total extermination.
I am starting to view the major conflict that is evolving in Ukraine and now Moldova in context of the Russian minority issues. Transnistria is basically dominated by Russians, Moldova has a large Russian minority that was denied constitutional rights at the elections and the Russian minority extends into Eastern Romania as well. Generally the whole of the area starts looking like Ukraine II Reloaded.
Funnily enough, the large-ish (it's not THAT large as some would think) Russian minority is actually mostly Russian-speaking Ukrainians :D. There is no Russian minority of any sizable number extending into Eastern Romania, sorry to burst that bubble :))
You are bursting your own bubble. Russians are around on the Eastern edge of Romania close to the Moldovan border and they are rather nervously watching developments from their villages. It would be also logical to assume that they are networking with Russians in Moldova, Transnistria, Ukraine and Russia as well as this is what their logical survival strategy calls for.
Where do you take your propaganda from :)))??? I live here, there is nobody 'nervously' watching, there are a few old-style believers, refugees from 18th century persecution, some two villages' worth where they have their churches and village signs in their language as they are probably 100% of the inhabitants and a few others scattered around the Danube Delta and elsewhere (23k in 2011 for the whole country, as they declared themselves in the census, now 19k), totally integrated as they have been living for centuries here, these are not Stalin-era newcomers, and a handful (many more than the Russians) of Ukrainians, that are speaking Ukrainian (so-called hohols/hahols, versus the Russian lipovans mentioned above, about 45k). Stop swallowing Zakharova's propaganda whole without checking the actual facts on the ground :D.
The Romanian government has some issues with basic arithmetic when it comes to counting minorities. The fairy tale after 1991 was that there were only a few hundred thousand Gypsies living there and this was a government stat. This drastic underestimate helped Romania into the EU and to export hundreds of thousands of Gypsies into Canada and Western Europe. After all the exports the present international consensus is still between 2 and 3 million Gypsies on Romanian territory. Smaller minorities are hiding as they want to avoid any attention; they know what is good for them. WIKI page writers are either Romanians toeing the party line or completely ignorant foreigners parroting Romanian government stats. Although the Russian minority in Romania is only in the low tens of thousands, given the opportunity Moscow will not be shy to protect them.
Sure, buddy, you are right, there are two hundred million trillion Russians hiding here in fear of their lives, nervously waiting to be set free, you got us, as we can't cook the books well enough for your sharp wits, but rejoice, they will be reuniting with Mother Russia any second now, just after Gerasimov personally liberates Odessa and moves into Transnistria, which, as esteemed anal-yst pepe escobar assures us and has been foretelling every single day for the past three years, 10 months and 25 days, will happen literally any second now!!! All hail goddess Zakharova!!!
If I am โdelusionalโ you are a mental retard and have no idea what the f..k you talking about. The good news for you is that there are many around on this forum like you, so you will not be lonely.
I reviewed the demographic stats of these nations many times in the last decade going back to the early 20th century. I also travelled, visited many times in these countries. I fully understand the realities of minority politics there, the methods, the goals and the results. Minorities in Moldova, Romania, Russian or otherwise, have every reason to be nervous, they live under serious pressure under lawless systems. Just review the history of these nations and the way the crazy girl grabbed power from the Russians in Moldova. And that is only one example. There is also the drastic example in Transnistria where the Russians were only able to survive by grabbing enough military hardware left behind by the Red Army. If Russia takes the Black Sea coast to the Romanian, Moldovan borders, Maia Sandu will be screaming in terror and keep running until she finds a safe hole to hide in Brussels. Since EU/NATO insists to push this conflict endlessly into the indefinite future chances are that this is where the game will end up.
moldovans know the romanians much better than you would expect, the problem is they can't fight both romania and eu. that's why, to avoid another historical injustice like many that they created, moldova must be part of a solution offered to this whole space.
I'm curious if Russia has considered giving Moldova the coastal land there currently controlled by Ukraine, as sort of a deal sweetener. It seems that being landlocked is a problem economically for Moldova.
I no longer believe that Russia has any realistic diplomatic or military pathway for achieving that even if it wanted to unless something radically changes.
Russia most certainly has the military capacity to own the Black Sea coastal areas all the way to the Romanian border, including Odessa. The question is: Are they willing to pay the price that comes with this territory. This war has an expiration date behind which Russia will be forced to commit the resources to win it decisively. If the EU rearmament program becomes successful and goes into high gear that means Russia lost out on the window of opportunity they presently enjoy.
I haven't seen anything which convinces me that they still do. To the contrary, I consider the Black Sea Fleet to have been de facto crippled due to the successful attacks that Ukraine carried out against it with the indispensable support of the Anglo-American Axis:
At this point, I also assess that Ukraine has enough unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs, aka underwater drones) and coastal missile defenses to inflict potentially unacceptable costs to the remaining Black Sea Fleet if they attempted to land in Odessa.
Therefore, as much as it pains me as a proud "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" to say this, I believe that they window of opportunity actually closed by the time that spring 2022's peace talks began since a landing at Odessa early in the SMO might have succeeded despite the costs (relatively minimal compared to today's).
Putin didn't go for it, in my opinion, since the SMO was meant as a military means for coercing Ukraine into Russia's demanded political- military concessions without resulting in the loss of territory, the latter goal of which only emerged with September 2022's referenda after the aforesaid objective didn't succeed.
I believe that Putin's initial calculation was that the SMO would swiftly succeed, and it pretty much did despite some setbacks, but victory wasn't attained since the UK (and Poland!) sabotaged spring 2022's peace talks:
Putin was counting on a swift victory that the EU would then more or less accept just like they accepted Crimea with only minimal sanctions, but that wouldn't have been possible had he authorized a costly landing at Odessa.
Not only is that in proximity to NATO member Romania, which could have (as he presumably thought) prompt an escalation with the bloc, but Russia would have had to claim the territory as its own if it took heavy losses.
He never intended for there to be any territorial goals, however, instead expecting that Kiev's capitulation to his political-military demands would improve the lives of Russians in Ukraine and thus make that unnecessary.
When the SMO didn't succeed in its initial objective, his goals evolved to include a territorial dimension, which was also meant to justify the costs that Russia had already paid by then in the conflict.
To be sure, there were also genuine humanitarian and security considerations, but the cynical political calculation (in my opinion) was to also keep support for the SMO high on the home front.
After all, territorial goals are something concrete that pretty much every member of the population understands, unlike comparatively more abstract concepts like reforming the European security architecture, etc.
Generally I agree with the above. It should have been done a lot earlier. On the other hand I can almost visualize Putin sitting with his closest generals in an office at the end of 2026, telling them: It is clear now that the EU nations will flood Ukraine with military hardware till the end of times unless we act. Therefore, closing the Ukraine borders all around became an existential issue for us. Either we act whatever it takes or we will lose the war.
Russia has the capacity to produce enough glide bombs with 500 kg loads of explosives to demolish all Ukraine defensive lines at the Black Sea line.
as i said, russia was never ukraine's enemy. also, you can't imagine the depth of the connections between ex-soviet countries without going there, so except the fact that ukraine already gave moldova the port of palanca, moldovans could fully trust at individual level ukraine (or russia) in ways that would never be possible with romanians. i speak from experience, and that's not a danger to europe, since their populations, already small, became even smaller after this war. but when you have to choose between the byzantine enemy and some guys who pretended to do something while secretly being led half by west, half by byzantines, the choice is clear.
An interesting look at the technicalities, especially regarding the 'de facto' NATO integration. But beyond the referendums and dual citizenship, there is a cultural reality that politics can't fix or break. For many of us in Bucharest, the reunification is less about 'sinister plots' and more about the natural state of a single civilization.
ANOTHER ISSUE WITH ROMANIA IS NOT TO GIVE THEM AN ANT'S SS BEFORE THEY WITHDRAW THEIR SPIES AND INFLUENCE, BECAUSE THEIR SIMPLE PRESENCE IN THE FORMS THAT IT IS, WILL DOOM THE HOST COUNTRIES.
Even if Moldovans actually wanted to unify thereโs that pesky fact that no Romanian in his right mind, even a nationalist, would want to take on Moldovaโs problems.
not only they will, but they will also treat them as they did with their own population - exterminate 50%, send 50% as migrants, repopulate the place with asians or their own asians. or rather much worse.
at worst alberta, only in exchange for the archipelago south of alaska and vermont, but fortunately albertans' heads cooled down recently, because the old formula still works - competent leadership and no nonsense attitude solve most problems, even in the west... although canada's huge territory, especially the cold areas, should be open to the whole american continent, plus oceania and uk-ireland if they are blocked anywhere else, same with russia for the rest of the world, and this would calm many passions and bring many friends.
for some reason, it's some countries of nato, especially the byzantines and rotschild-sassoon-macron, that put more pressure on moldova than moldova herself wants this. every time romania had its way, new conflicts followed, and when it got most, it helped produce the greatest catastrophe, the second world war; the destructive effect it produces is directly proportional with the power it is given.
This was an excellent analysis of a very delicate situation that could develop between Moldova and Russia concerning Transnistria. One issue to note is that Moldovan President Maia Sandu continues a trend toward the feminization of European leaders where females make decisions based on feelings, emotions, and ideology. It is a dangerous path because without a return to genuine masculine leadership, the West will fail.
Indeed, though I think they are empty vessels for the string pullers. The fact that they are female just means that none of it has to make sense, skipping the rationalization tap dancing part of the act that male leaders generally have to do.
Essentially Europe is fallen under the control of the HR ladies -- a class of pure intermediaries.
Eat shit๐คก
not all women are bad, not all men are good; especially bad are women controlled by men or trying to look as one, and it's not the case for the moldovan president.
Unfortunately, Russia has neglected Transnistria and to this day doesnโt recognize it as a country.
It may be too late to change a reunification with Moldova.
Russia has used Transnistria as a frozen-conflict lever, not treated it as a state to be fully recognized, but not willing to absorb it as an exclave like Kaliningrad. Prolonged political and economic stagnation doesn't seem great.
Country or no country Russia still keeps a small army there 'to keep the peace'.
Russia also has to supply that army.
Transnistria is Russian. No one dare Russian territory. Moldova is of little significance. . It can do whay it wants. When Russia & Ukraine are united it would be best for Moldova to be independernt of Romania. NATO is not a power house. Various countries now in NATO are looking to get out of it. Russia + Ukraine are 50% of Europe.
for a while i though it could be used as a bargain chip for ukraine but, given that ukraine might prefer chernivtsi and southwestern odessa, that's not such a good idea. ukraine would be wise to at least keep moldova friendly and independent and let russians withdraw their army, weapons, industry and anything strategic, decreasing the romanian temptation because historically russia was never the enemy and romanians' intentions, expressed in hruscev, rakovski, cosor and kaganovich's holodomor, go beyond conquest, to total extermination.
Look at the map. How is it Russian ?
I am starting to view the major conflict that is evolving in Ukraine and now Moldova in context of the Russian minority issues. Transnistria is basically dominated by Russians, Moldova has a large Russian minority that was denied constitutional rights at the elections and the Russian minority extends into Eastern Romania as well. Generally the whole of the area starts looking like Ukraine II Reloaded.
Funnily enough, the large-ish (it's not THAT large as some would think) Russian minority is actually mostly Russian-speaking Ukrainians :D. There is no Russian minority of any sizable number extending into Eastern Romania, sorry to burst that bubble :))
Theyโre Russians. That they happen to have relatives in Ukraine or visit there doesnโt change that.
many of them also came for the industrial objectives built there, with no connection to ukraine.
You are bursting your own bubble. Russians are around on the Eastern edge of Romania close to the Moldovan border and they are rather nervously watching developments from their villages. It would be also logical to assume that they are networking with Russians in Moldova, Transnistria, Ukraine and Russia as well as this is what their logical survival strategy calls for.
Where do you take your propaganda from :)))??? I live here, there is nobody 'nervously' watching, there are a few old-style believers, refugees from 18th century persecution, some two villages' worth where they have their churches and village signs in their language as they are probably 100% of the inhabitants and a few others scattered around the Danube Delta and elsewhere (23k in 2011 for the whole country, as they declared themselves in the census, now 19k), totally integrated as they have been living for centuries here, these are not Stalin-era newcomers, and a handful (many more than the Russians) of Ukrainians, that are speaking Ukrainian (so-called hohols/hahols, versus the Russian lipovans mentioned above, about 45k). Stop swallowing Zakharova's propaganda whole without checking the actual facts on the ground :D.
The Romanian government has some issues with basic arithmetic when it comes to counting minorities. The fairy tale after 1991 was that there were only a few hundred thousand Gypsies living there and this was a government stat. This drastic underestimate helped Romania into the EU and to export hundreds of thousands of Gypsies into Canada and Western Europe. After all the exports the present international consensus is still between 2 and 3 million Gypsies on Romanian territory. Smaller minorities are hiding as they want to avoid any attention; they know what is good for them. WIKI page writers are either Romanians toeing the party line or completely ignorant foreigners parroting Romanian government stats. Although the Russian minority in Romania is only in the low tens of thousands, given the opportunity Moscow will not be shy to protect them.
Sure, buddy, you are right, there are two hundred million trillion Russians hiding here in fear of their lives, nervously waiting to be set free, you got us, as we can't cook the books well enough for your sharp wits, but rejoice, they will be reuniting with Mother Russia any second now, just after Gerasimov personally liberates Odessa and moves into Transnistria, which, as esteemed anal-yst pepe escobar assures us and has been foretelling every single day for the past three years, 10 months and 25 days, will happen literally any second now!!! All hail goddess Zakharova!!!
'All hail goddess Zakharova!!!"
I wouldn't mess with that girl.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0-%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%8D there you go, in Russian (though I somehow doubt you speak it), I've actually been there, lovely village
If I am โdelusionalโ you are a mental retard and have no idea what the f..k you talking about. The good news for you is that there are many around on this forum like you, so you will not be lonely.
I reviewed the demographic stats of these nations many times in the last decade going back to the early 20th century. I also travelled, visited many times in these countries. I fully understand the realities of minority politics there, the methods, the goals and the results. Minorities in Moldova, Romania, Russian or otherwise, have every reason to be nervous, they live under serious pressure under lawless systems. Just review the history of these nations and the way the crazy girl grabbed power from the Russians in Moldova. And that is only one example. There is also the drastic example in Transnistria where the Russians were only able to survive by grabbing enough military hardware left behind by the Red Army. If Russia takes the Black Sea coast to the Romanian, Moldovan borders, Maia Sandu will be screaming in terror and keep running until she finds a safe hole to hide in Brussels. Since EU/NATO insists to push this conflict endlessly into the indefinite future chances are that this is where the game will end up.
moldovans know the romanians much better than you would expect, the problem is they can't fight both romania and eu. that's why, to avoid another historical injustice like many that they created, moldova must be part of a solution offered to this whole space.
I'm curious if Russia has considered giving Moldova the coastal land there currently controlled by Ukraine, as sort of a deal sweetener. It seems that being landlocked is a problem economically for Moldova.
I no longer believe that Russia has any realistic diplomatic or military pathway for achieving that even if it wanted to unless something radically changes.
Russia most certainly has the military capacity to own the Black Sea coastal areas all the way to the Romanian border, including Odessa. The question is: Are they willing to pay the price that comes with this territory. This war has an expiration date behind which Russia will be forced to commit the resources to win it decisively. If the EU rearmament program becomes successful and goes into high gear that means Russia lost out on the window of opportunity they presently enjoy.
I haven't seen anything which convinces me that they still do. To the contrary, I consider the Black Sea Fleet to have been de facto crippled due to the successful attacks that Ukraine carried out against it with the indispensable support of the Anglo-American Axis:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-anglo-american-axis-not-ukraine
At this point, I also assess that Ukraine has enough unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs, aka underwater drones) and coastal missile defenses to inflict potentially unacceptable costs to the remaining Black Sea Fleet if they attempted to land in Odessa.
Therefore, as much as it pains me as a proud "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" to say this, I believe that they window of opportunity actually closed by the time that spring 2022's peace talks began since a landing at Odessa early in the SMO might have succeeded despite the costs (relatively minimal compared to today's).
Putin didn't go for it, in my opinion, since the SMO was meant as a military means for coercing Ukraine into Russia's demanded political- military concessions without resulting in the loss of territory, the latter goal of which only emerged with September 2022's referenda after the aforesaid objective didn't succeed.
I believe that Putin's initial calculation was that the SMO would swiftly succeed, and it pretty much did despite some setbacks, but victory wasn't attained since the UK (and Poland!) sabotaged spring 2022's peace talks:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/poland-was-just-as-much-to-blame
Putin was counting on a swift victory that the EU would then more or less accept just like they accepted Crimea with only minimal sanctions, but that wouldn't have been possible had he authorized a costly landing at Odessa.
Not only is that in proximity to NATO member Romania, which could have (as he presumably thought) prompt an escalation with the bloc, but Russia would have had to claim the territory as its own if it took heavy losses.
He never intended for there to be any territorial goals, however, instead expecting that Kiev's capitulation to his political-military demands would improve the lives of Russians in Ukraine and thus make that unnecessary.
When the SMO didn't succeed in its initial objective, his goals evolved to include a territorial dimension, which was also meant to justify the costs that Russia had already paid by then in the conflict.
To be sure, there were also genuine humanitarian and security considerations, but the cynical political calculation (in my opinion) was to also keep support for the SMO high on the home front.
After all, territorial goals are something concrete that pretty much every member of the population understands, unlike comparatively more abstract concepts like reforming the European security architecture, etc.
" Putin was counting on a swift victory that the EU would then more or less accept just like they accepted Crimea with only minimal sanctions, "
Actually, I think Putin was trying to replicate his Georgian "SMO" except this time the West was ready and lured him in .
Generally I agree with the above. It should have been done a lot earlier. On the other hand I can almost visualize Putin sitting with his closest generals in an office at the end of 2026, telling them: It is clear now that the EU nations will flood Ukraine with military hardware till the end of times unless we act. Therefore, closing the Ukraine borders all around became an existential issue for us. Either we act whatever it takes or we will lose the war.
Russia has the capacity to produce enough glide bombs with 500 kg loads of explosives to demolish all Ukraine defensive lines at the Black Sea line.
as i said, russia was never ukraine's enemy. also, you can't imagine the depth of the connections between ex-soviet countries without going there, so except the fact that ukraine already gave moldova the port of palanca, moldovans could fully trust at individual level ukraine (or russia) in ways that would never be possible with romanians. i speak from experience, and that's not a danger to europe, since their populations, already small, became even smaller after this war. but when you have to choose between the byzantine enemy and some guys who pretended to do something while secretly being led half by west, half by byzantines, the choice is clear.
An interesting look at the technicalities, especially regarding the 'de facto' NATO integration. But beyond the referendums and dual citizenship, there is a cultural reality that politics can't fix or break. For many of us in Bucharest, the reunification is less about 'sinister plots' and more about the natural state of a single civilization.
ANOTHER ISSUE WITH ROMANIA IS NOT TO GIVE THEM AN ANT'S SS BEFORE THEY WITHDRAW THEIR SPIES AND INFLUENCE, BECAUSE THEIR SIMPLE PRESENCE IN THE FORMS THAT IT IS, WILL DOOM THE HOST COUNTRIES.
Even if Moldovans actually wanted to unify thereโs that pesky fact that no Romanian in his right mind, even a nationalist, would want to take on Moldovaโs problems.
not only they will, but they will also treat them as they did with their own population - exterminate 50%, send 50% as migrants, repopulate the place with asians or their own asians. or rather much worse.
"If If the US is sincere about maintaining its dialogue with Russia on bilateral ties and Ukraine.."
The word "if" is doing a lot of work in that phrase.
Anyway, what does Russia propose to do about it? Cry "No fair?" Bring up ancient history? Grouse impotently while the Americans gleefully ransack?
US wants Greenland and maybe Alberta? I am sure there is ample area for compromise.
at worst alberta, only in exchange for the archipelago south of alaska and vermont, but fortunately albertans' heads cooled down recently, because the old formula still works - competent leadership and no nonsense attitude solve most problems, even in the west... although canada's huge territory, especially the cold areas, should be open to the whole american continent, plus oceania and uk-ireland if they are blocked anywhere else, same with russia for the rest of the world, and this would calm many passions and bring many friends.
for some reason, it's some countries of nato, especially the byzantines and rotschild-sassoon-macron, that put more pressure on moldova than moldova herself wants this. every time romania had its way, new conflicts followed, and when it got most, it helped produce the greatest catastrophe, the second world war; the destructive effect it produces is directly proportional with the power it is given.