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The NATO forces may replace Russian peacekeepers in Moldova

Chisinau believes that Moscow pushes Moldova to NATO itself, using the methods of pressure and blackmailing in the relations with the country

The Chisinau authorities are preparing a firing range near the Moldovan village Bulboaca as a military base for the NATO forces. Security Minister of the Transdniestria Vladislav Finagin said about this prospect to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily. He stated that in the last half a year Chisinau “is reinforcing actively the military component with the assistance of the United States and Romania,” intending to fix this provision in a new Constitution of the country. Chisinau believes that Moscow pushes Moldova to NATO itself, using the methods of pressure and blackmailing in the relations with the country. These conclusions were drawn after a statement by Russian ambassador-at-large Sergei Gubarev about a possible recognition of the Transdniestria.

“The authors of the relevant constitutional changes refer to NATO. The firing range is equipped properly in Bulboaca, and this territory is being prepared for a NATO base,” the Transdniestrian minister noted. “In the last half a year Chisinau is reinforcing actively the military component with the assistance of the US and Romania: the specialists from these countries are training the police special forces and the forces of the Moldovan Service of Information and Security,” he remarked. Finagin noted that this tendency was dictated by the recent statement of Russian ambassador-at-large Sergei Gubarev in Tiraspol at the end of the previous week.

“If Moldova loses sovereignty or neutrality the Russian Federation will raise again the question whether the Transdniestria can exercise the right for self-determination,” the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily quoted Gubarev as saying. Chisinau immediately began the talks about Russia’s possible recognition of the self-proclaimed republic. The parties to the conflict should develop a final plan of the Transdniestrian settlement on the basis of a compromise, Gubarev noted.

Gubarev’s statement was taken in the Moldovan capital as “blackmailing and an attempt of pressure on Chisinau.”

“This is a matter of Russian concerns over NATO. But these statements of Russian officials make Moldova take more attentively its relations with NATO and search for a reliable shield of defence,” head of the Chisinau centre of strategic studies and political consulting Anatol Taranu explained to the newspaper.

Sergei Gubarev’s statement is linked with the Kremlin plans to form the Eurasian Union, director of the Chisinau Institute of European Studies and expert from the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces Viorela Ciubotaru said. “Moscow is seeking to influence such players as Moldova and Ukraine, actually imposing the Eurasian alternative to the European trend. Actually there is no such prospect as the loss of its sovereignty or neutrality for Moldova. The blackmailing and the chauvinist populism of Moscow are obvious. Meanwhile, the pressure on Tiraspol and its leader Yevgeny Shevchuk is obvious, as the latter succeed to find a common language with the Moldovan leadership up to now. The statements about Russia’s possible recognition of the Transdniestria bring these contacts to naught,” the expert underlined.