TIRASPOL, December 19. /TASS/. Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria, which is a de facto independent unrecognized state known as the Dniester Republic, does not pose any threat to Ukraine, its President Yevgeny Shevchuk said on Friday.

“We’re alarmed by the declarations of some officials in Ukraine on an alleged military threat to their country on the part of the Dniester Republic,” he said. “We’ve said many timed the people living here are peaceful. We’ve never harbored any aggressive actions against our neighbors and are not harboring them now.”

“The Dniester government’s efforts aim to reach mutual understanding that would demonstrate and enable it to implement a policy of peace and good-neighborliness towards partners in Moldova and Ukraine,” he added.

Ukrainian authorities fortified the Transdniestrian section of the Ukrainian-Moldovan state border this year. They dug antitank ditches, raised an earthen rampart and put up check-posts reinforced by armed vehicles on the roads.

Transdniestria, which has a predominantly Slavic population, declared its independence from Moldova after the latter had proclaimed independence from the USSR in 1991. Its relations with Moldova’s central government in Chisinau have been highly mixed and extremely tense at times ever since then.

In 1992 and 1993, the tensions erupted into a bloody armed conflict that claimed the lives of hundreds of people on both sides.