Ukrainian officials have discussed the risk of a new front in the conflict with Russia, along the border with Moldova in the southwest.
Part of the Moldovan border area is controlled by a pro-Russian government in what is called Transnistria. Unexplained explosions there earlier this week led Ukrainian officials to claim that Russian security forces were planning provocations in Transnistria as a pretext to open a new front in the war.
Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, told Ukrainian television on Wednesday: “We have always considered Transnistria as a springboard from which there may be some risks for us, because [the] Odessa and Vinnytsia regions.”
There is a certain [military] contingent of Russians, it’s somewhere between 1,500-2,000 people, of whom only 500-600 are Russians,” Podoliak said.
But he said most of the people in Transnistria were integrated into Moldova and Europe.
“Therefore, active involvement in the conflict in Ukraine means for Transnistria practically total isolation and destruction of the enclave,” Podoliak noted.
Podoliak suggested that Russia was trying to provoke Ukraine through the incidents in Transnistria this week.
Roman Kostenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from Odessa, said Transnistria posed no strategic threat to Ukraine.
“It could be a tactical threat, in a certain direction, to tie up our forces,” the official said.
Costko said the Russians are counting on Transnistria as “another front that could support them directly when they attack, for example, Mykolayiv, Odessa from the sea, because Mykolayiv is blocking the land corridor.”
Ukrainian defenses around the city of Mykolaiv have prevented Russian troops from reaching Odessa by land.
Ukraine’s far southwestern corner is now cut off from the rest of the country after a road and rail bridge over the mouth of the Dniester River was hit by a second cruise missile on Wednesday after hitting its first on Tuesday. Russia has not said it carried out the missile attack.
Ukraine’s southern military command claimed that Russian submarines continued to threaten missile strikes from the Black Sea. “Enemy forces are also preparing provocations with rocket attacks on Transnistria to accuse Ukraine of attacking the unrecognized republic,” it said.
