Russia is freezing indefinitely its $300-million support line for the breakaway Moldavian province of Transdnestr after a Kremlin candidate lost the vote in the region.
The decision is a dire threat for the cash-strapped Transnestr and appears to be a warning message for the new government ahead of a new round of talks on the region’s fate, an analyst said.
Speaker of the Transdnestr parliament, Anatoly Kaminsky, arranged the grant from Moscow during the presidential campaign last year. But he lost in the runoff to Yevgeny Shevchuk in December.
Kaminsky first announced the program’s freeze after returning from a new trip to Moscow on Tuesday. He confirmed the report to RIA Novosti on Thursday, but said the republic’s social spending would not be affected.
Moscow, Transdnestr’s ally that has deployed 1,200 peacekeepers in the region, will continue footing the bill for additional retirement payments, as well as partially fund the region’s education spending, Kaminsky said by telephone.
“It would not be a severe blow, we’ll support our citizens,” he said. The frozen grant included support programs for the region’s small businesses and agriculture, as well as funding for mortgages for young families. Moscow will continue shelling out a monthly $15 for each of Transdnestr 130,000 retirees.
Moscow is taking revenge on Transdnestr for flunking Kaminsky at the elections, Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper speculated on Thursday, without citing any sources.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Moscow did not return a request for comment. But Transdnestr politicians and analysts contacted by RIA Novosti said that Russia was wary, not angry.
“There is logic in Moscow wishing to get a better understanding of the new government and its actions,” said Dmitry Soin, foreign affairs chief in the Transdnestr legislature.
“There is absolutely no connection to the election here because in this case we wouldn’t have received the main thing – the pension funding,” Kaminsky said.
Transdnestr has a population of 550,000, a per capita GDP of $1,800 and a budget deficit of 70 percent.
“There’s a new man in power now, and he has yet to prove his loyalty to Russia’s goals,” said Gennady Konenko, an analyst with the Institute of CIS Countries, a Moscow-based think tank.
President Shevchuk, just as his predecessor Ivan Smirnov who ruled the region since it seceded from Moldova following a bloody conflict in 1990-1992, supports the independence of Transdnestr, even though no country has recognized it, Konenko said. But Moscow wants it eventually reintegrated into Moldova, and Kaminsky indicated he is ready to support this goal, he said.
The next round of multilateral talks on the status of Transdnestr, which were dropped in 2006 but resumed in November 2011, will take place in Dublin in February. In addition to Moldova and Transdnestr, other participants include Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union and the United States.
Shevchuk is good at compromise, and the Transdnestr population is growing weary of the region’s unclear legal status, which means he may find public support if he starts drifting toward Moscow’s position on the matter, Konenko said.
He dismissed the possibility of the conflict between Russia and Transdnestr escalating, but conceded there is no time frame for when Moscow may resume its support to the region.
“There won’t be any economic collapse – Transdnestr's economy is already a disaster,” Konenko said.
