On July 7th, the State Duma, lower house of the Russian parliament, adopted a statement called “About negative trends in the development of the situation around Transnistria in the context of activities, undertaken by the Government of Moldova and Ukrainian authorities”. The Russian deputies urged Ukraine and Moldova “to abandon all forms of pressuring Transnistria and all activities aimed at organization of region’s blockade”. In this regard, predominantly the establishment of common Ukrainian-Moldovan border and customs posts at the Transnistrian segment of Ukrainian-Moldovan border is meant. Besides, the State Duma “insists on a most rapid organization of a subsequent round of negotiations in 5+2 format and strongly disagrees with attempts to replace it by any other formats”.
At first view the statement of the State Duma does not seem to contain any arguments beyond traditional style of Russian official discourse. Nevertheless, some new colors can be indicated. Firstly, Russian parliamentarians initiated the first meaningful wave of securitizing the situation around Transnistria in the last two years at least. The logics of securitization prescribes that the act of securitization is followed by working out a set of “emergency measures” becoming ordinary state practices without further political discussions. This time such measures were formulated by deputies during the panel discussions. For instance, most speakers argued that Transnistrians do need Russian high-technology medicine, a simplified mechanism for obtaining Russian citizenship for Transnistrians born after 1992, as well as Russian program of “mother’s capital”, supporting Russian families after birth of at least second child, to be extended for Transnistria too. The deputy Shapov, representing the Communist Party, even stated that Russia should work toward opening the Russian consulate in Tiraspol, depriving Ukraine of its official status as mediator within 5+2 format, as well as extending the Security Zone with proper stationing of Russian peacekeepers to territories where Ukrainian-Moldovan border posts will be located.
Nevertheless, none of measures proposed were incorporated into the final text or adopted through any other channel. The parliamentary statement remained of predominantly rhetorical nature. Nevertheless, any further deterioration of political situation around Transnistria could activate some of these measures, particularly those which will lead to increase of Russian social support for the break-away republic.
The second issue, which became explicit in the context of this plenary session of the State Duma, is some disagreement in Moscow’s political circles about Igor Dodon. After Leonid Kalashnikov, the head of the State Duma’s Committee on Commonwealth of Independent States, Eurasian integration, and relations with compatriots, presented the text of the statement to the audience, he was asked by the deputy Andrey Alshevskich, representing the ruling party “United Russia”, about why the statement is addressed to “the Government of Moldova and Ukrainian authorities” and not simply “Moldovan and Ukrainian authorities”. Responding to this question, Leonid Kalashnikov said that from the very beginning Igor Dodon differed from the legislative and executive branch of the Moldovan authorities. For instance, the Russian deputy mentioned such steps of Dodon as creation of positive negotiation dynamics with Transnistrian president Krasnoselsky, prevention of Moldova’s participation in military exercise under NATO’s auspices as well as support of all official events in Russia and Moldova devoted to the Soviet Union’s Victory in the World War II. At the same time Kalashnikov stressed that Dodon supported the establishment of Ukrainian-Moldovan border posts, and this decision is allegedly not so understandable for Russia. “We do not catch compromises Dodon are accepting in relations with the Moldovan government in this regard”, he argued.
Kalashnikov also said that the text of the statement was from the very beginning formulated in a way that Ukrainian and Moldovan “authorities” were addressed, but by request of Sergey Mironov, the leader of the party “Just Russia”, the text was allegedly changed to exclude the negative message for the Moldovan president. It is remarkable in this context that the deputy head of the State Duma’s Committee on Commonwealth of Independent States, Eurasian integration, and relations with compatriots Konstantin Zatulin argued, that the Russian parliament is “paying in advance by the fact that we deleted the term “Moldovan authorities”. It was not the first time when Zatulin, a prominent Russian parliamentarian, urging for instance a simplified approach for obtaining the Russian citizenship for people from the whole post-soviet space, explicitly criticized the Moldovan president for his support of Moldovan-Ukrainian border posts.
Explicit support for Dodon or implicit critic of his figure were also present in speeches of other Russian parliamentary parties, whose representatives spoke at the plenary session on July 7th. For instance, Alexey Chepa, a representative of the party “Just Russia” (which has some cooperation ties with the Moldovan Party of Socialists), argued that Dodon is ready for compromises with Transnistria, is striving for strategic partnership with Russia and membership in the Eurasian Union. On his side, Anton Morozov, a representative of Zhirinovsky’s “Liberal Party” (which is a partner of Renato Urastii’s “Our Party”), stressed the point that Igor Dodon supported the creation of border posts, which de facto leads to Transnistria’s blockade. The main part of his speech was devoted to citation of repressions of Moldovan authorities against “Our Party” and he called this political structure “the only one true oppositional force in Moldova”.
The Moldovan president by himself responded to the statement of the State Duma in a very ambiguous way. Attempts of pressuring from any side would have an inverse effect on the Transnistrian conflict settlement, he argued. Besides, Dodon expressed gratitude to Russia for its contribution as a peacekeeper, but at the same time he practically continued to defend his position on border points and the whole reintegration policy of Chisinau. The creation of common economic and legislative space should be continued, and these are important steps towards the reintegration of the country, what should be understood and accepted by Tiraspol too, Dodon argued.
Consequently, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Moscow’s political elites to differentiate between “pro-Russian president Igor Dodon” and “pro-Western Moldovan government”, at least in the context of Transnistrian conflict settlement. It was clearly articulated during the plenary session of the State Duma. Nevertheless, the Russian deputies want to leave doors opened, but will closely monitor the situation around Transnistria. As of today, the border post in Kuchurgan, which is currently the main object of Ukrainian-Moldovan cooperation, does not seem to function properly. Other politico-economic restrictions are also far from being fully operational. That’s why the securitization in Moscow is also more of rhetorical nature. But it could be argued that the current ambiguous approach to reintegration of Moldova, which is now promoted by Democratic Party and/or Igor Dodon, is hardly supported by Moscow. The last plenary session in the Russian parliament clearly demonstrated that.