Quiet in Transnistria, Sound and Fury in the West

Quick Hit: March 1st, 2024

Following the swirl of rumors, articles and rampant speculation that we covered last week the Congress of People’s Deputies in Transnistria has now come and gone. Here are the top line takeaways:

• The congress adopted a unanimous resolution calling on the Russian State Duma and Federation Council "to protect Transnistria" in the face of "increasing pressure from Chisinau." The resolution noted the 220,000 Russian citizens living in the region and called out economic pressures from Chisinau. They also appealed to the OSCE, European Parliament, United Nations, Red Cross and others to pressure Chisinau to withdraw the newly imposed import and export taxes. There was no mention of annexation or renewed call for Russia to recognize the region’s independence.

• The Russian Foreign Ministry responded with a quote to Russian state media from a low ranking official saying that "Protecting the interests of Transnistrian residents, our compatriots, is one of the priorities. All requests are always carefully examined by specialized agencies in Russia,"

• Putin did not mention Transnistria or Moldova at all in his state of the union speech on February 29th.

The Congress of People’s Deputies - Photo from Первый Приднестровский telegram

So none of the alarmist predications came true. Transnistria did not ask Russia for annexation or recognition. Essentially the whole event was just a series of complaints about harmonizing the region’s import and export tax regimes with the rest of Moldova. It’s also worth noting that the tone of the event was lacking in even normal jingoism for Transnistria. There were no Russian flags in the hall as there normally are at events held in the region. There were also speeches given in Romanian and Ukrainian in addition to Russian. Finally, the appeals made to Moscow are almost identical to others that Transnistria has sent at least 3 times in the last 2 years.

At the end of the day, basically nothing happened. This probably would have sailed by as a minor news story in Moldova and a bullet point in a weekly roundup if the international press hadn’t gotten quite worked up… and they really did. We’re going to look at that reaction below and parse out what it can tell us about this whole affair.

Chisinau’s Reaction

Responding to the congress, and even more to the international press about it, Moldovan officials have continued to stress that there is no risk of escalation at this time and that this whole thing was a Russian exercise in propaganda and hybrid warfare. Speaking following the congress President Sandu stated:

“Tiraspol asked for money, I saw that they turned to Moscow and other international structures and organizations. Meanwhile, Russian propaganda spread this horror story [about annexation]. The Kremlin is doing this to intimidate Moldovans, especially since we are in an election year. The Kremlin wants us to be scared, to be spineless, to be led by corrupt officials who can be negotiated with by bribing politicians, as has happened for many years. We can't let them do this. We must maintain peace. Our peace depends on our unity and ability not to be deceived,”

The President further noted that geography and the state of the war means that Russia couldn’t do anything in Transnistria even if they wanted to. She also noted that this is why Russia is so focused on changing power in Chisinau by means of disinformation and hybrid warfare operations.

Government spokesman Daniel Voda also issued a statement about the congress saying:

"... It is another campaign that tries to hysterize society around this so-called event in Tiraspol. It's an event set up by those on the left of the Dniester and those from the Kremlin. We see no danger of destabilization. We are following very closely and reiterate that the Transnistrian region is aligned with the goal of peace and security. And what is happening in Tiraspol is a propagandistic event, a scam that does not deserve the live broadcasts of foreign journalists or the tense headlines in the news bulletins"

Understanding What Happened

Moldovan geopolitical risk analyst Dionis Cenusa wrote a preliminary analysis of this situation on his substack East-West Risk Analysis Compass. It’s worth a read, but I’ll paraphrase his main 3 points here:

1. This “false flag” disinformation campaign required both the Transnistrian “authorities” and Kremlin to be working together. It’s worth noting that the Transnistrian authorities firmly denied rumors of annexation or renewed calls for independence only on February 27th, allowing speculation to hang in the air for nearly a week.

2. The Moldovan authorities failed for pre-bunk or de-bunk the disinformation campaign. By the time there was any serious reaction the story was well out of control (outside of Moldova).

3. Western actors (including media) were caught by surprise "which raises the question of the level and depth of understanding of the processes taking place in Moldova."

It’s worth focusing for a moment on those last 2 points. Firstly, while the Moldovan government messaged clearly that this was a disinformation operation from day one, they did not do it with high profile politicians at first. It’s not clear whether the international press would have paid more attention if the message was more clearly and authoritatively delivered (more on that below), but there was little real attempt to get ahead of the situation. Secondly, as we’re about to see, this whole affair has highlighted serious problems with international press coverage about Moldova.

A Bonanza of International Coverage

On February 28th a massive number of articles in the international press came out discussing the Congress of People’s Deputies in Transnistria. Taken together these articles constitute probably the largest single day of coverage about Moldova since the European Political Community Summit last year and maybe even more than that. There were articles by the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, DW, France 24, Euractiv, European Pravda, The Moscow Times, Meduza, Balkan Insight, CNN, CNBC, The Guardian, Aljazeera and many more.

Let’s start with the best. CNN’s article covering the congress was by far the finest English language reporting on the events in question. It provided context for readers not familiar with Moldova and Transnistria, led with quotes from the Moldovan government and generally put the whole events of the last week into context.

The worst article without any doubt was from CNBC. It started with this “key point”

"Speculation is mounting that Russian President Vladimir Putin will use his annual address to Russian lawmakers Thursday to announce that Russian troops will be sent to “protect” the pro-Russian, breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova."

The article goes on to catastrophize the affair by implying that Russian tanks could be rolling into Transnistria in the immediate future. It ends with the following paragraph:

Any move by Russia to reinforce its military presence in Moldova could put it on a direct collision path with Moldova’s government and armed forces, potentially opening another front in Russia’s expansionist war.

This article is an extreme case of issues that were present in all the international reporting (except CNN) and displayed a shocking level of detachment from not only what is going on in Moldova, but from the actual military capabilities of the Russian Federation.

It’s worth noting that apparently CNBC realized that their article was absolutely terrible and has since re-written elements of it without noting any corrections. You can access the original version via the wayback machine.

While it might be interesting to call out terrible reporting in its own right, it’s more important to look at it as a sign of what Dionis Cenusa called the “level and depth of understanding of the processes taking place in Moldova” found in the press.

Most of the articles linked above were pretty good on balance, but almost all of them suffered from a few common issues:

1. Catastrophizing about a call to Russia for “protection.” Very few articles put the call for “protection” into context. Firstly, Transnistria regularly calls on Russia for help or protection - this rhetoric is not at all new or novel. Secondly, “protection” is a *massive* step down from the previous reporting about annexation or recognizing independence. Many articles seem almost to have been pre-written as an alarmist take on a call for annexation and then adopted last minute to say “protection” without noting the step down in rhetoric or broader context.

2. Focusing exclusively on Transnistria’s appeal to Russia. The Transnistrian authorities appealed to lots of international organizations - inexplicably even the Red Cross. Most international reporting focused exclusively on the call for protection without noting the other 6 points of the congress’ declaration which focused almost exclusively on tax complaints.

3. Focusing on rhetoric without providing context. In many ways this is the worst of all the sins of bad reporting here. Lots of articles referenced the Institute for the Study of War’s (ISW) latest assessment which continues to paint a fairly alarming picture of Putin using Transnistria as an excuse to widen the war to Moldova. Particularly the idea that this call for protection could result in Russia reinforcing their troops in the region. To ISW’s credit they note that it is “unclear” how Russia would do this and other analysts note that it would be “extremely difficult” to do so. “Extremely difficult” is doing a lot of work here. ISW notes that to reinforce Transnistria Russia would have to send troops through “Ukrainian or Romanian” territory. Let’s break that down for a moment. Putting aside some scenario where Russia collapses Ukrainian lines and suddenly wins the war (in service of getting to Transnistria?) this is referring to an air lift operation. In order to fly troops to Transnistria, Russia would have to either cross over Ukrainian territory in areas where air defenses are shooting down Russian missiles, drones and planes on a daily basis, or fly through Romania (and subsequently Moldova). Going through Ukraine would likely be suicide for the troops and limited equipment being airlifted in. Going through Romania would result in Romanian and American fighters scrambling from bases near Constanta and presumably firing the first shots of World War 3. Even if Russia could somehow fly troops into Transnistria they would have no way of resupplying what would amount to a sudden and ill conceived invasion of Moldova. They would be at war with Moldova’s small army and (inevitably) the very substantial Ukrainian forces right over the border. Almost none of the articles that postulated a sudden Russian invasion of Moldova noted the important context that it is not possible. The entire scenario is about as credible as a threat from North Korea to invade Detroit. The difference is that many international journalists gave this scenario undue credence.

4. De-emphasizing or ignoring Moldovan official statements. All the articles listed above quoted, at least briefly, Moldovan sources dismissing threats of escalation. But almost none of the articles took these seriously. On one hand this is a failure of the Moldovan government to quickly respond and pre-but this story. On the other hand, most of those articles were happy to blow by statements from Moldovan officials and get to interesting speculation or put primary emphasis on what the Kremlin is saying or would potentially do.

5. Zero attention to the idea that this could be an influence operation. Almost no articles focused seriously on the idea that Putin was getting exactly what he wanted from the press. The Kremlin and Transnistrian official statements were far too often taken at face value.

So what does this all mean? A quote from Macbeth came to my mind while writing this:

It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17–28)

Over this last week Putin has made lots of people his useful idiots.

This is not to say that local or international press should not have covered the news about Moldova and Transnistria. It is to say that they should cover the country more often and develop more expertise before writing ludicrous articles (looking at CNBC here). For many large news outlets this is one of the first articles written about Moldova in a year. The catastrophizing tone and lack of critical context has meant that many people are less informed about this country than they were last week.

Moldova is a country under threat and as I wrote in my article about the year ahead Transnistria is likely to be a focus of Russian and Moldovan attention this year. But coverage has to have nuance and carefully listen to Moldovan voices who actually know what’s going on most of the time.