It's a casus belli.
First up, referring back to February 6ths "The RAND Corporation Blueprint For Forcing Putin To Over-Extend Himself"
I hope that the U.S. or NATO or whoever commissioned this study didn't pay a lot for it, it's basically the strategy that Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came up with in the early 1980's although the details do differ. The tactical components of the RAND plan are:
1. Arming Ukraine ;
2. Increase support for jihadists in Syria;
3. Promoting regime change in Belarus;
4. Exploiting tensions in the South Caucasus;
5. Reducing Russian influence in Central Asia;
6. Rivaling the Russian presence in Transnistria.
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On January 12 Victoria Nuland showed this approach is top-of-mind in the Biden Administration. From Interfax Ukraine:
Nuland: I'm going to let Russians speak for themselves how long they can financially back placement of troops near Ukraine
And from BNE IntelliNews, April 26:
Russian media have been reporting claims by figures including a former minister from Ukraine’s separatist Donetsk region that EU and Nato member Romania is preparing to take Moldova’s pro-Russian Transnistria region by force.
The bizarre claims were widely reported in the Russian media following the first of a series of as yet unexplained attacks on targets within Transnistria, a Russia-backed separatist region in the east of Moldova, bordering Ukraine. There is no evidence to support them, yet they raise some worrying questions about Russia's future intentions towards Transnistria.
As reported by bne IntelliNews, after news broke of an attack from a grenade launcher later identified as a RPG-27 Tavolga on the empty headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (MGB) in Tiraspol, the Russian public were inundated with propaganda claiming that Romania has nearly invaded Moldova and is preparing to oppress Russian-speaking nationals in Transnistria.
“Romania, with the support of Nato and with the participation of the Ukrainian army, plans to seize Transnistria and carry out massive political repressions against all supporters of Russia,” Russian daily Pravda announced immediately after the incident in Tiraspol, quoting politologist Sergei Markov.
The so-called expert claimed that the Romanian army has already been deployed in Moldova and forces are being built up.
Earlier, the former minister of defence of the unrecognised Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine, Igor Strelkov, claimed that Romania was conducting covert preparations to capture Moldova.
According to him, a significant part of the Moldovan officers in all headquarters in all key positions have been replaced by officers of the Romanian army.
The unfounded claims have not yet received any official response from Romania, a staunch backer of Ukraine in the war against Russia, as well as a supporter of Moldova, whose economy has been hard hit by the war on its eastern border.
While they are unlikely to carry any weight in either Moldova or Transnistria, set against observations on the ground, they may help convince some of the Russian public should Moscow be gearing up for action in Moldova.
Moldova is seen as the most vulnerable country to a potential spillover from the conflict, given its status as a small post-Soviet state, close to the fighting and with part of its territory occupied by Russia-backed separatists.
Officials in both Chisinau and Tiraspol have so far largely refrained from comments that could lead to an escalation of the situation. While condemning the invasion, the Moldovan government has insisted on maintaining its neutrality and unlike Ukraine, has not been pursuing Nato membership, although it recently applied to join the EU.
For its part, the government of Transnistria has linked the attacks to Ukraine. The unrecognised republic's President Vadim Krasnoselsky commented on April 26: "I assume that those who organised this attack have the goal of dragging Pridnestrovie into the conflict."
Tensions between Chisinau and Moscow increase
However, tensions between Chisinau and Moscow have increased in the last week, after Russian Brigadier General Rustam Minnekayev said on April 22 that the Russian army plans to take Ukraine's Donbas region, then create land corridors to both the Crimea and Transnistria.
"Since the beginning of the second phase of the special operation, which has already begun, literally two days ago, one of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the Donbas and southern Ukraine," said Minnekayev, the acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, as reported by Tass.
"Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Pridnestrovie [Transnistria], where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population. Apparently, we are now at war with the whole world, as it was in the Great Patriotic War, all of Europe, the whole world was against us. And now the same thing, they never liked Russia," added Minnekayev....
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A look at this map, by NPR's @mulletmapping, shows you this region would be relevant to the war in Ukraine:
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) April 26, 2022
-Not far from the Black Sea port of Odesa.
-Shares a 250 mile border with Ukraine
-Fighting could also imperil the north-south route from Kyiv to Odesa. pic.twitter.com/62AzdFlvqp
If the Russians take Odessa the resulting Ukraine would be a landlocked rump state similar to the Russophile/Europhile Presidential election map from a dozen years ago:
Or, going a bit further back in time, as noted February 28:
....And if I didn't know better—seriously, who would be that revanchist—I'd say the Russians are trying to recreate the Novorossiya (New Russia) of Catherine the Great:
We didn't have all those posts on Crimea for nothing you know.....
