Unspecified status
The world learnt about Moldova's hospitality the other day. However, it was not the cultural or gastronomic hospitality but the military one. On 7 August, the largest Russian media RT reported that the US Department of Defence was seeking contractors to build military facilities near the Moldovan village of Bulboaca.
According to the tender, the future contractor would have to undertake «the design and construction of facilities at the Bulboaca training base for the training of military operations in the urban setting.» It is planned to erect eight buildings.
There would be no problem, but under the constitution Moldova is a neutral state. This means the refusal to participate in various military blocks and alliances. In practice, however, the Moldo-American Joint Combined Exchange Training exercises have been held since 2009. In 2015, another military exercise, Effort Comun 2015, with the involvement of US artillery and servicemen from Poland, Georgia and Romania. On 5 August, the Dragoon Pioneer 2017 drills finished at the Bulboaca base.
In addition, the US supplies weapons to Moldova. For example, in 2011 the US donated 80 vehicles to Moldova.
Sometimes, however, such supplies are a surprise to the Moldovan authorities. The fact is that in March 2017 it became known that the US was planning to deliver firearm simulators to train local security forces.
According to opinion polls, the majority of Moldovans oppose to the country joining Nato. President Dodon calls such actions by the Moldovan government, which is defiantly promoting Nato's interests, a provocation and promises to grasp the situation and find out the reason why the construction of the military base had not been agreed with him.
Expert of the International Institute of Humanitarian and Political Studies, Vladimir Bruter, doubts that Dodon could somehow influence the situation. «He has not blocked anything yet. And all his promises have yet to be realised. Dodon was not even able to facilitate Dmitry Rogozin's visit to Moldova. And in this case, he is likely to lack the presidential powers. Moreover, the Americans have long felt at home at the Bulboaca base. And they are expanding their presence within the framework of Kishinev's partnership with Nato," Bruter said in an interview with Svobodnaya Pressa.
According to experts, the purpose of American intervention in the internal affair of Moldova is to compel the authorities to cooperate with Nato and allow the alliance to expand its eastern borders to Russia.
The US's goal is to banish Russia
It is evident why Washington and Brussels are interested in expanding the military presence in the neutral Moldova. The Bulboaca base, whose renovation cost $1.6 million, is located within several tens of kilometres from Pridnestrovie and on the border of the Security Zone of the Moldo-Pridnestrovian conflict. And the US's well-known position is that Moscow must withdraw Russian weapons and ammunition from the region.
According to Russia's special representative on Pridnestrovie, Dmitry Rogozin, the construction of the US Army's facilities in Moldova is designed to train the Moldovan Armed Forces, including saboteurs and special forces for a new potential conflict with Pridnestrovie.
«'The design and construction of facilities to train military operations in the urban setting,' the Americans have begun training of Moldova's saboteurs and special forces in case of a new armed conflict with Pridnestrovie," Rogozin wrote on his Facebook page.
Poland's Onet. pl media portal notes that Nato's expansion and strengthening of relations with Moldova are «one of the ways in which the West can improve its position in its game with Russia.» The game is not brilliant, however, and the Moldovan political elite should not lose national dignity, state neutrality and sovereignty to the benefit of Brussels and Washington. The West will not value this victim but will help to turn the peaceful and relatively prosperous Moldova into a semblance of the belligerent Afghanistan or Donbass.
The director of the Centre for Geopolitical Analysis, Valery Korovin, believes that Moldova may become another springboard for American expansion into the Eurasian continent.
«Pridnestrovie is an alternative — Eurasian — geopolitical line. And it goes absolutely counter to the Atlanticist geopolitics, which perceives as hostile any presence and manifestation of the Eurasian geopolitics of a multipolar world. And everything is being done to eliminate the «Russian presence»… America is a new network empire that exploits all the spaces, where it comes to, in its own interests. Therefore, Moldova becomes another springboard for American expansion into the Eurasian continent," said Korovin on the Sputnik radio.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, in turn, concludes that the Pentagon has to move ahead with its plans in Moldova to make them irreversible before a possible change of the current pro-Nato government. And if the change of the Moldovan power is unfavourable for Washington, the White House will be able to intervene in the situation: the Bulboaca base is located only within a few tens of kilometres from Kishinev.
Russia has something to defend Pridnestrovie
It is noteworthy that Moldova has explained the expansion of the training facilities in Bulboaca by Kishinev's participation in the Global Peacekeeping Initiative as a partner. It remains only to add that Moldovan soldiers, alongside the servicemen of Pridnestrovie and Russia, have taken part in the peacekeeping mission to resolve the Moldo-Pridnestrovian conflict.
Dmitry Rogozin fears that the policy of the Moldovan government may exacerbate the situation around Pridnestrovie.
«This bothers us most of all. We have a military contingent there that guards the warehouses of the former 14th Soviet Army. Besides, there are our peacekeepers there, about 450 in number… Now the Moldovan authorities and security forces are preventing the rotation of our peacekeepers, whose terms of service end and who will naturally have to return home. Russia's official representatives are denied entry. This is a subject of a very tough conversation, but it seems that this time we won't have this conversation with Bucuresti or Kishinev. We'll talk to those who are pulling these strings," said Rogozin.
Russian experts believe that as for now the Americans are only expanding their instruments of influence and not those of intervention.
«That is, there is a deliberate escalation of the situation. I wish the USA did not forget itself in playing. Because it is not the beginning of the 90s now. And Russia has something to apply if hostile actions are taken against Pridnestrovie. Especially when we consider that from 150,000 to 200,000 Russian citizens live in the country, whom we will certainly protect. And we have every right to do so," military expert Vladimir Yevseyev to Svobodnaya Pressa.
The same view is espoused by Vladimir Bruter. «I would not call the situation explosive. Because the USA understands if they accidentally or intentionally will bring a lighter, a response will follow. And they don't need it," said the expert.
It is the peacekeeping forces that for 25 years have not allowed the provocations instigated by the West to turn into another military conflict on the Dniester. And as long as this threat persists, no Russian soldier is going to leave Pridnestrovie.
And if Moldova plays too long with Nato and loses its neutral status, then as was repeatedly said by Russian diplomat Sergey Gubarev, «Russia reserves the right to recognise the independence of Pridnestrovie.»
