Photo: army parade in Trans-Dniester Republic (Reuters)
Russia plans to open a second front against Ukraine near Odesa. For this purpose, the Kremlin is drawing up plans for attacks from the so-called “Trans-Dniester Republic”, a region of Moldova that was captured and occupied by local separatists and Russian forces in 1992.
This information was reported to the Moldovan newspaper “Ziarul de Garda” by retired Lieutenant Colonel, Anatol Karaman, president of the Association of Dniester War Veterans “Tiras-Tighina”.
“I recently received information from reliable sources that all Russian military equipment in the Trans-Dniester Republic has been urgently relocated to the south of the Slobodzeya District, located on the border with Ukraine.” said the officer “Russia is conducting training exercises in that zone in view of opening a second front towards Odesa.”
According to Karaman, there are now about 20,000 well-armed Russian servicemen in the Trans-Dniester Republic. All of them have been trained for combat operations in the field and in urban areas.
It should be noted that recently pro-Russian sentiment, sponsored and encouraged by Russia, has grown significantly in the republic. A few months ago, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitriy Rogozin, flew to the Trans-Dniester Republic, where local residents handed him a list with a few thousand signatures of people wishing to annex the republic to Russia. A scandal broke out when Rogozin’s aircraft was not allowed to enter Ukrainian or Romanian airspace on the way back; in the end, his plane had to land at Chisinau Airport (Moldova), where all the lists with signatures were confiscated by the Moldovan security services.
Despite the alarming news from the Trans-Dniester Republic, the situation in bordering Odesa oblast in Ukraine remains calm. After the tragic events of May 2 in Odesa, where dozens of local pro-Russian separatists were burnt alive in the local House of Trade Unions, not one supporter of “Russkiy Mir” (Russian World) has dared to organize major anti-Ukrainian actions in the city.
[hr] Source: by24.org/2014, translated by Christine Chraibi
