Odesa At Risk: "Russian stuff blowing up: Russia looks to play its Transnistria card"

First up, Daily Kos, December 10:

After almost four years of war in which Russia’s garrison in the separatist Transnistria region of Moldova has been quiet, Russia may be ready to use it against Ukraine.

Russia only has about 1,500 troops in Transnistria so there isn’t going to be an offensive launched. Most likely it would be small sabotage groups trying to infiltrate Ukrainian territory to the east. 

Why would they do that now? Two possible reasons — 1. They want to tie down Ukrainian troops along the border with Transnistria or 2. They have determined that for political and economic reasons they cannot sustain the garrison there much longer so they might as well use it.

Transnistria continues to exist in its current form only because Moldova has preferred diplomacy and cooperation instead of a new civil war and because It wasn’t seen as enough of a threat to justify a military operation to eliminate the Russian garrison there.

Also, Transnistria is the home of the Cobasna ammunition depot, the largest in Europe and full of aging munitions that no one in their right mind would want to deal with. Cobasna is in the northern part of Transnistria and just across the border with Ukraine....

....MUCH MORE 

As noted in 2024:

The typical sequence of events is for a country to claim their enemy is persecuting a minority within a territory, usually co-coreligionists or language-based, to set up a casus belli. Then skirmishes followed by warnings and finally full-scale hostilities.... 

NATO would love to have Russia extend itself further as proposed in the 2019 RAND Corporation report on how to bleed Russia dry militarily and perhaps more importantly, economically. From our February 6, 2022 post:

"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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 Here's that bit of land via BigThink's Strange Maps:

And here is the relevant section of RAND's Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, page 130 of the report (pp. 158 of the PDF)

Measure 6: Challenge Russian Presence in Moldova

Nestled between Romania and Ukraine with no seacoast of its own, Moldova, a former republic of the Soviet Union, is now an independent country. Transnistria is a Russian-speaking enclave within Moldova that currently hosts a Russian peacekeeping (some might say occupa- tion) force and army base. John Todd Stewart, who was U.S. ambassa- dor to Moldova from 1995 to 1998, described Moldova as “the Florida of the [Soviet Union], the republic with the most temperate climate, which was attractive to retirees. These people do not speak Romanian and have no connections with the area, period.”126 As the Soviet Union was collapsing in 1990, Transnistria—home to about a half-million Russophone residents today—broke away from Moldova.127

A brief conflict between pro-Transnistrian forces and the Moldovan police and military ended inconclusively.128 

Moldova never reasserted its control over the breakaway region, but no member of the United Nations— including Russia—recognized its existence either.129 

Therefore, Transnistria has existed in a sort of netherworld for the past several decades....

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 Kyiv Post, December 10:

Russia ‘Raising the Threat to Ukraine’: Transnistria Force, Drone Build Up, Intel Reports

A Kyiv Post intelligence source said Russia is rapidly boosting mobilization, drone production and covert operations in Transnistria to destabilize Moldova and raise the threat to Ukraine.

And Kyiv Post, December 14:

Russian Drone and Missile Barrage Cuts Off Odessa, Mykolaiv Amid Winter 

Odesa’s regional military administration head, Oleh Kiper, described the strikes as “one of the most massive” in recent weeks.

Again, the geography: 

A look at this map, by NPR's @mulletmapping, shows you this region would be relevant to the war in Ukraine:

-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

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) April 26, 2022

Finally Reuters, December 13:

Ukraine's Odesa suffers major blackouts after Russian attack