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Transdniestria tightens control on borders in view of Ukraine’s crisis

TIRASPOL, March 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Evgeny Shevchuk, the leader of Moldova’s unrecognised Republic of Transdniestria, has ordered tougher control along the republic’s borders in view of the unstable situation in Ukraine.

“It is necessary to increase border control to avert possible attempts to move weapons and ammunition,” Shevchuk said at a meeting with the heads of law enforcement agencies on Monday, urging policemen to show tact and restraint to foreigners arriving in the republic.

“We should be maximum polite these days. I am sure that everybody, including our international partners, will become convinced with time that all the statements about a ‘military threat’ allegedly coming from Transdniestria were invented for some political purpose,” Shevchuk said, adding that Transdniestria wanted to demonstrate its peaceful intentions and was, therefore, refraining from holding any military exercises or concentrating troops on the border.

Transdniestria’s Foreign Minister Nina Shtanski has said that last week Ukrainian border guards stopped letting men with Russian passports cross into Ukraine from Transdniestria which has about 200,000 Russian nationals. She also noted that Ukraine had started stopping trains carrying cargoes to the Russian peacekeepers in Transdniestria which, in her view, could threaten a peacekeeping operation on the Dniester River.