Just across the border from Odessa lies
Transnistria, the Kremlin sponsored enclave within Moldova.
Unsurprisingly, considering regional events, it
appears that Transnistria is about to mobilize, apparently following a decree
issued by “President” Yevgeny Shevchuk.
This mobilization, it is claimed, will attract
between 5000 and 7000 18 – 27 years olds, as well as an enrollment campaign of
previously served personnel of about 80,000, from a total population of
approximately 500,000. Ergo about 17.5% of the enclave.
An interesting development, although it remains
to be seen just how effective any such mobilization will be, or how long it
will last considering the dire state of the Transnistrian economy that is
already overly reliant upon Kremlin handouts.
Whether the thinking behind this decision is to
slow the efforts of the less than robust western facing Moldavian government on
its continued European course, or whether it is a Kremlin driven attempt to
make Ukraine redeploy some of its eastern forces, or if it is simply to cause
social unrest in Moldova, Transnistria and Odessa’s border area with the
Transnistrian enclave, thus providing a Kremlin inspired “crisis” that it then
will seek to “solve” on its own onerous terms for both Ukraine and Moldova
remains to be seen.
However, with the Kremlin stealing
more territory in Georgia, insuring an up-tick in violent contact across the entire
front line in eastern Ukraine, and now this decreed mobilization in
Transnistria that will only occur with The Kremlin blessing (and probably upon
its instruction and financing) all within a week, it is perhaps time to wonder
just when the much repeated rhetoric of “additional costs” heard from
European/western leaders regarding belligerent, malevolent and
obstructionist Kremlin policy will actually incur any additional costs.
Perhaps it is necessary for the Kremlin to stoke
tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh too?
The rhetoric of “no spheres of influence”
forever spewing forth from the western leaders, will appear more than a little
holow if The Kremlin continues to influence the region without significant cost
through entirely illegitimate and aggressive acts.
Is it good policy to treat Kremlin led events in
Ukraine separately from Kremlin led events in Georgia and now Transnistria, or
is it good policy to see them all as regionally related and Kremlin led, thus
providing for the possibility of telegraphed reaction for any and all events in
the region having “costs”?
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