MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) - The safety of Russian citizens in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region is currently under threat and Moscow will take all steps to protect them, Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Pro-Russia Transdniestria broke from Moldova before the collapse of Soviet rule and, after a brief war in 1992, has existed in peace alongside the post-Soviet state for more than three decades. Moldova’s pro-European authorities have recently been applying greater pressure on the separatist enclave.
Shoigu, interviewed by the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, said Moscow was ready to use any means to protect Russian nationals in the sliver of land bordering Ukraine.
“It must not be forgotten that more than 220,000 Russian citizens live in Transdniestria. Their interests and safety are now under threat due to the ill-considered and irresponsible actions of Kyiv and Chisinau,” Shoigu told the daily.
“If the need arises, Russia will take all necessary steps and use all available methods to protect them under the constitution. You mustn’t rule anything out, and we are considering all possible scenarios, even those that are most unlikely.”
Russia, he said, hoped “that things will not develop according to the most negative of scenarios”.
Negotiators from Moldova and Transdniestria failed to make any progress at their latest meeting last week aimed at edging towards a settlement of the separatist conflict.
Transdniestria objects to Moldova’s decision last week barring entry to commanders of a 1,500-strong contingent of Russian “peacekeepers” that has stood between the two sides since 1992. It also rejects the Chisinau government’s plan to extend customs duties and value added tax to the rebel region.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu wants to take her country, one of the poorest in Europe, into the European Union by 2030 and says the process can be accomplished even without a resolution of the Transdniestria dispute.
In his comments to Komsomolskaya Pravda, Shoigu accused Moldova of blocking talks on a settlement and hindering the region’s residents from voting in elections and a 2024 referendum in which residents narrowly backed joining the EU.
But he said an agreement to resolve the separatist issue was not out of the question.
“Nothing is impossible. You need good will and conditions,” he was quoted as saying. “But you get the impression that Chisinau is doing everything so that there is no will for reunification or proper conditions for it to happen.”
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov and Ron Popeski, Writing by Anna PeverieriEditing by Gareth Jones and Andrea Ricci )
