Tiraspol, 19 June. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. Pridnestrovie must be prepared to defend itself in the event of external aggression, the first president of the PMR, Igor Smirnov, believes. The ex-president took part in today's commemorative events dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Bendery tragedy, after which he talked to the press.
According to Igor Smirnov, although a quarter of century has elapsed since the Moldovan attack on Bendery, it is still important for Pridnestrovie to be able to maintain its statehood.
«Look at what's going on today in the world, in this very Syria. When it is politically necessary, states promote terrorist organisations and then they take trouble over them. It is therefore very important for us to understand that even with Russia and its peacekeepers behind our back, we must be able to defend ourselves, as was the case in 1992. And then the great Russia stopped a further war," said Smirnov.
The ex-president underscored that Pridnestrovians had never betrayed the memory of the country's defenders, who had not lost their lives in vain.
«We have retained the right of the Moldavians to speak Moldavian, the Russians to speak Russian, the Ukrainians to speak Ukrainian, the Bulgarians to speak Bulgarian. And neither politics nor legislation has ever tried to make a Moldavian become a Russian or Ukrainian. This is the essence of life to be protected by the next generation," concluded Smirnov.
The large-scale aggression of the Republic of Moldova against the PMR began on 2 March 1992, with an attack by Moldovan riot police on the Civil Defence Regiment of the 14th Russian Army, located in Cocieri. The apogee of aggression was the invasion of Bendery launched on 19 June 1992. The fighting lasted for more than a month and the armed confrontation was halted only by Russian intervention.
Through the mediation of the plenipotentiary representatives of the President of Russia on 7 July 1992, the parties to the armed conflict signed a ceasefire agreement, and on 21 July, in Moscow, Boris Yeltsin and Mircea Snegur, in the presence of Igor Smirnov, signed an agreement «On principles for the settlement of the armed conflict …» and, eight days later, Russian peacekeepers stood between the parties to the conflict.
In the summer of 1992, according to official figures, 489 people were killed in Bendery, including 132 civilians and five children. Another 1242 persons, including 698 civilians, were wounded. Eighty thousand residents of the city were temporarily forced to become refugees.
