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”?