TIRASPOL, August 21, /ITAR-TASS/. Authorities in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region that has been struggling for independence since the early 1990’s and is also known as the unrecognized Dniester Republic, have refuted the allegations that an amassed drafting for the army has begun in the region.
“No one here has declared either a general or a partial mobilization,” a spokesman for the unrecognized republic’s Defense Ministry told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
“The case in hand is scheduled retraining and upgrading courses for reserve soldiers and officers from among state officials and government employees,” he said. “Such courses are held annually upon a presidential decree.”
The reservist training courses will be held from September through to December on the bases of the peacekeeping contingent in Transdniestria, which guards tranquility and is deployed in the region’s buffer (disengagement) zone.
Reservists will be drafted for a month-long retraining “in shifts”, the Defense Ministry said.
Observers say, however, this is the first time in the history of the Dniester Republic that government officials and employees will be called up for reservist training as durable as this one and some experts link the fact to persisting instability in neighboring Ukraine.
In previous years, officials would be called up for just a few days
Transdniestria’s security services said in early August they had operative information on possible armed provocations being organized on the border with Ukraine.
Ukrainian and Dniester governments also accused each other of conniving at the unknown malefactors who had opened purported gunfire at border guards on the opposite side of the border.