CHISINAU, December 14. /TASS/. Transnistria’s authorities are worried over Moldova’s increased weapons purchases and frequent army drills, Oleg Belyakov, he unrecognized republic’s co-chairman in the Joint Control Commission overseeing peacekeeping operations, said.
"Who are they going to fight with? Who are they going to use these weapons against? I guess not against own population, not against Ukraine or Romania. It means that when they are speaking about security in the military sense of the word, they obviously imply some sort of confrontation, including with Transnistria," the TSB television channel quoted him as saying.
In 2023, Moldova’s authorities increased the military budget by 68%, to 1.523 leu ($89 million), intensified military cooperation with the United States, European Union, and NATO, which increased weapons supplies to the republic.
Russian peacekeepers, who were deployed to the zone of the Transnistrian conflict under the July 21, 1992 agreement with Moldova on peaceful settlement of the armed conflict in Moldova’s Transnistrian region.
Apart from that, a Russian group of forces of around 1,000 soldiers and officers is deployed to the region to ensure the security of depots holding more than 20,000 tons of munitions that were put in storage there after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from European countries. A weapons and munitions withdrawal and disposal campaign started in 2001, but in 2004 the Transnistrian authorities cut it short following a deterioration in relations with Moldova. These troops are also supporting the peacekeepers who have found themselves literally under blockade after Ukraine blocked logistics routes through its territory.