Transnistria: how the Ukraine war is heating up Russia’s longest forgotten separatist conflict

For more than three decades, a narrow strip of land along the Dniester river, wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, has existed as one of the world’s strangest political entities. With a population of 300,000, Transnistria functions like a state but is recognized by none — not even Russia, which has maintained a military contingent there since its inception. It flies Soviet symbols alongside Russian flags above its Supreme Soviet, has an economy monopolized by a conglomerate named “Sheriff” whose football team once beat Real Madrid, and now risks opening another front in the Ukraine war as the Kremlin starts handing out a large number of Russian passports.

Unresolved separatist conflicts are especially common in post-Soviet countries, from South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, to Donbas in Ukraine. Most are unstable. But Transnistria, despite being entirely cut off from Russia, has survived for so long because the status quo was uniquely tolerable for the powers in the region. For Russia, it offered a low-cost foothold on Europe’s edge. For Moldova, which legally controls the territory, it has become too politically costly to reintegrate. For Ukraine and the West, it was a distraction best contained rather than ignited.

This strange calm is beginning to erode. Transnistria now faces the fourth year of a war that is undermining its Russian patron and slowly changing the dynamics in the region. A critical aspect is that Transnistria not only houses a Russian contingent on Ukraine’s doorstep, but a munitions depot so large that its detonation would be more destructive than the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, potentially affecting millions. Even if never used, the threat alone of Russia sabotaging it creates another lever of ambiguity, coercion, and psychological pressure on Europe.

Moreover, its economy is a ticking timebomb. Despite its pro-Kremlin stance, the war has made it almost entirely dependent on the EU and Ukraine for its exports and imports. The result is an increasingly fragile political order divided between the interests of the local elite’s conglomerate, which seeks to preserve Transnistria at any cost, and Kremlin-aligned hardliners pushing for confrontation.

Most of all, we are seeing developments not unlike what occurred in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. The very first reference came in April from Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who declared that Russia would do “everything in its power” to defend the allegedly threatened Russian speakers of Transnistria. But now Putin has just signed into law a bill that essentially naturalizes all Transnistrians as Russians. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, familiar with this strategy, issued an unusually blunt statement that implies a staging ground is being prepared near Transnistria. The government is now “coordinating a response with Moldova” and awaiting “proposals from Ukraine’s special services”. It is Kyiv’s first such public comment on potential action in Transnistria, and suggests Ukraine no longer views it as a nuisance but as a real threat.

Transnistria’s origins lie in the imperial border-making that shaped much of Eastern Europe. The territory east of the Dniester river was conquered by Catherine the Great from the Turks in 1792, but it only emerged in its modern sense after Romania united with Moldova (Bessarabia) in 1918 at the onset of the Russian Civil War. Moscow never recognized this and created a Moldovan autonomous republic inside Soviet Ukraine in 1924, giving birth to “Transnistria” — essentially a disguised territorial claim against Romania.

That claim became reality in 1940, when the Soviet Union illegally annexed Bessarabia under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. Moscow merged central Bessarabia with Transnistria to create the Moldovan SSR, then reshaped the region through the familiar Soviet toolkit of deportations, demographic engineering, and arbitrary borders that made separation from Moscow costly. Incidentally, most of Soviet Moldova’s heavy industry and energy infrastructure was concentrated in the majority Slavic Transnistria, along with the 20,000-ton Cobasna ammunition depot.

As the USSR collapsed, Chisinau sought closer ties with its ethnic kin in Romania over Moscow. However, the local Transnistrian elite saw this as a direct threat to their control over the area’s vast resources, and were backed by Moscow’s 14th Army. As such, when Moldova declared independence in 1991, it was never able to exercise sovereignty over Transnistria, which the brief 1992 war with Transnistria and elements of the 14th Army confirmed.

Despite the appearance of being a Russian puppet, Transnistria traditionally operated with the flexibility that would ensure the survival of its local elites, as the Professor Armand Gosu told me. These intertwined business and political networks are part of the dominant “Sheriff” conglomerate, which owns over 60 per cent of Transnistria’s economy and contributes to 33 per cent of the state budget. Sheriff was founded in 1993 by Victor Gusan and Ilya Kazmaly, and eventually grew to own supermarkets, petrol stations, telecom, media, and the aforementioned football team that beat Real Madrid, Sheriff Tiraspol. This is all due to exemptions on customs duties that were approved by President Smirnov, who would later become Gusan’s adversary. The key figures in Sheriff are closely associated with the ruling “Renewal” party of President Vadim Krasnozelsky and are careful to balance the Kremlin’s red lines with their business interests. In 2022, they resisted Russian attempts to provoke Ukraine, partly because many hold close ties with the country: business, properties, and even citizenship in the cases of Gusan and Krasnozelsky.

The “autonomy” of the Sheriff elite Is however eroding. Kremlin-imposed hardliners increasingly dominate the political scene because of how dependent Transnistria is becoming on Russian economic aid. This is due to the Ukraine war significantly affecting Sheriff’s revenues. This new faction is made up of Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatiev (a Ukrainian citizen), the area’s Speaker Tatyana Zalevskaya, and a number of staff in the Russian contingent. With Putin’s citizenship decree, this group is only set to grow in size and influence.

Putin’s decree does not change geopolitical realities. Russia failed twice to establish a land connection to Transnistria – it is therefore still isolated, scarcely populated, and vulnerable. However, what it does change is how the Kremlin sees Transnistria: as a sacrificial pawn to be used for leverage in peace talks. And that can be traced to the area’s destructive potential, its decaying economy, and its difficult political standing.

Strategically, what gives Transnistria its leverage is its masked threat. Russia has used this to create a strategy of fear, ambiguity, and hybrid warfare. According to the head of Ukraine’s Office of the President Kyrylo Budanov, Transnistria is a traditional hub for disinformation, illicit financing, Moldovan oligarchs like Vladimir Plahotniuc or Ilan Sor, and fearmongering. This is all done in order to create a maximum perceived threat. This comes down to Cobasna, and the potential to use Transnistria as a pretext for the escalation of Russian military actions. Shoigu’s earlier words confirm this threat. In Transnistria itself, Cobasna is Russia’s only trump card – there are too few locals fit for service to even conscript there. Much of the ammunition at Cobasna is unmaintained and in dangerously critical condition. Nobody except Russia has ever inspected it, or understands its condition, hence why sabotage might be its only use. If blown up, according to a Moldovan report, it would be worse than a magnitude seven earthquake, creating a 50-kilometre blast. It would likely pollute the drinking water of about a million people, with its toxic air clouds reaching Austria.

This is a prime example of “madman theory”, as it is entirely believable that in a last-ditch effort, Russia would actually blow up Cobasna – even if it would effectively destroy Transnistria, Sheriff, and many new Russian citizens, the cost to Moldova, Ukraine and Europe would be far greater. This is why Zelenskyy’s use of the phrase “special services” shows just how seriously he is taking the threat. Any conventional military intervention would be too slow to reach Cobasna in time before the Russians blow it up – you would therefore need special operatives behind enemy lines who would neutralize Russia’s ability to rig it before the order is given, which would effectively kill Russia’s leverage.

Ukraine has been careful to signal the threat coming from Transnistria way before Putin’s decree, while much like Russia, keeping their actions intentionally ambiguous. Budanov refused to elaborate under which conditions Ukraine would pre-emptively intervene, and Zelenskyy did not elaborate what “coordination” with different actors means – we can only deduce what would be Kyiv’s red lines. What is clear, however, is that while the Transnistria issue was not explicitly discussed in any peace proposal, Budanov confirms that it has been talked about within the context of the wider war. This signals that it does matter to Kyiv.

Economically, Transnistria is in a desperate condition, which Tiraspol itself admits. Local GDP shrank by about 18 per cent in 2025, and Transnistria now exports 71 per cent of its goods through Moldova to the EU, importing much of its food from there too. This gives Brussels enormous leverage that would be hard to replace. Transnistria’s economy relies on free Russian gas to power its industry and sell to Moldova, which would historically grant concessions, and transit through Ukraine for contraband smuggling and trade. Russian gas stopped flowing through the Druzhba Pipeline in January 2025, which paralysed the region for months until Tiraspol accepted EU aid, and received gas through Hungary. Moldova, now connected to Romanian energy, started charging Transnistrian businesses customs fees that decreased industrial production by 24 per cent. This is not to mention the fact that Peter Magyar might terminate the gas deal signed by Orban. The government is even struggling to pay wages on time. If Russia or Sheriff do not address this soon, the entire economy may collapse – Russian army wages cannot save a place with so many pensioners.

Politically, Moldova’s stance on Transnistria is shifting – it realizes joining the EU with Russian troops in its recognized borders would be a security threat that has echoes of a Kremlin veto akin to the Kozak Memorandum. Even though EU negotiations can continue without Transnistria, this issue cannot be postponed indefinitely, as it will only become costlier to handle. It is not like Cyprus, a manageable, relatively stable frozen conflict involving Turkey, a NATO country. Instead, it is a powder keg that Russia could use to escalate tension, and create lasting damage politically and via Cobasna. Chisinau recognizes this reality. The Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu stated recently that the “chances for reintegration are now higher than ever”. This is specifically because he thinks Moldova is “moving in the direction… of the military issue”, even declaring that “some key issues in the coming years” will be solved. Chisinau’s “Reintegration Plan” does not touch on the principal barrier for integration – ejecting the Russian contingent. Moldova cannot neutralize this group itself, hence why it publicly calls for a “peaceful” solution. This could involve the external assistance it really needs.

For decades, Transnistria survived because all sides preferred convenience to resolution. But frozen conflicts are sustained by power, money and inertia — and all three are beginning to erode. Russia can no longer easily reinforce its distant enclave. Moldova increasingly tolerates Transnistria less and less, and might finally have a way to neutralize the Russian contingent through Ukraine, which no longer tolerates the threat that Transnistria now poses. Europe’s longest-running frozen conflict may finally be starting to warm up.

Max Mihailovici is a Ratiu Journalism Programme Mentee and UCL History (SSEES) alumnus writing on current geopolitical issues, mostly focusing on the former Soviet sphere.