MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/. Any move threatening the safety of Russian peacekeepers in the unrecognized Transnistrian republic will be taken as an attack on Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.
"Everyone should understand that any move posing a threat to the safety of our peacekeepers [in Transnistria] will be considered in line with the international law as an attack on Russia, just like it was in South Ossetia, when [then-President of Georgia Mikhail] Saakashvili attacked our peacekeepers," Lavrov said at a meeting with students and lecturers of MGIMO University.
Speaking about Russia’s interests in Transnistria, Lavrov reminded that a group of military servicemen is still stationed there guarding the largest arms depot in Europe, located near the residential area of Kolbasna.
The Transnistrian Republic was proclaimed on September 2, 1990, on the left bank of the Dnieper River; it has a predominantly Russian-speaking population. These events occurred amid an upsurge of Moldova’s nationalist movement, where the Popular Front, which came to power, proclaimed its course for unification with Romania. After the collapse of the USSR in 1992, the confrontation escalated into an armed conflict, which was stopped by Russian peacekeepers.
Since 1993, Chisinau and Tiraspol have been negotiating a resolution to the conflict, in which Moldova offers Transnistria the status of "special autonomous territorial unit." The authorities in Tiraspol insist on independence and rapprochement with Russia, pointing out that in a referendum in 2006, 97% of the region’s population voted for it.