CHISINAU, July 29. /TASS/. Transnistria residents are grateful to Russia for maintaining peace and stand for its continued peacekeeping mission on the Dniester River that has proved to be effective, Vadim Krasnoselsky, head of the unrecognized republic, said in an address on the occasion of the 33th anniversary of the introduction of Russian peacekeepers in the region.

"I am deeply convinced that Russia as a guarantor of peace on the Dniester River has always ensured and continues ensuring the inviolability of the agreements reached earlier that lay the basis for the existing format of the peacekeeping operation. The Transnistrians are grateful to the Russian Federation for its contribution to strengthening security and stability," says the document posted on the website of the press office of the republic’s head.

As the document reads, "in the current conditions, it is extremely important that the ongoing peacekeeping operation should continue and its format should not be revised."

As the head of the Transnistrian republic pointed out, 33 years ago, the introduction of the Russian peacekeeping forces into the region stopped the bloodshed that "was unleashed by the Moldovan leadership in its armed aggression against the Transnistrian people."

Transnistria stands for a peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian problem and is interested in constructive cooperation with Moldova, he added.

Russia introduced its peacekeepers into the zone of combat operations on July 29, 1992 under the Agreement on the Principles of the Peaceful Settlement of the Armed Conflict in the Transnistrian Region of Moldova signed on July 21, 1992 by the presidents of Russia and Moldova in the presence of the Transnistrian leader. The Russian peacekeepers are maintaining peace in the security division zone across the Dniester alongside the blue helmets of Moldova and Transnistria and a group of military observers from Ukraine.

The Operational Group of Russian Forces numbering about 1,000 soldiers and officers is also operational in the region. It is assigned with both maintaining the peacekeeping operation and guarding warehouses that store over 20,000 metric tons of ammunition delivered to that area after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from European countries. The Transnistrian authorities blocked the process of their removal and disposal in 2004 after tensions flared up again between the unrecognized republic and Moldova.

The Moldovan leadership insists on the withdrawal of the Operational Group of Russian Forces and has proposed replacing the peacekeepers by a civilian mission under an international mandate. However, Tiraspol stands against the withdrawal of Russian forces because a civilian mission failed in 1992 to prevent the armed conflict that claimed the lives of over a thousand people and injured several dozen thousand others who became refugees.