The Russian war in Ukraine is in danger of
spilling over into a potentially dangerous new phase
Analysis: Mysterious explosions in Moldova raise
possibility of new Putin gambit after early failures
A series of
mysterious explosions in Moldova have raised the threat of Russia’s war in
Ukraine spilling over into new territory, with unpredictable consequences.
The blasts
destroyed radio antennas in a Russian-garrisoned sliver of eastern Moldova
along the Ukrainian border, Transnistria, which had been peaceful since a brief
conflict in 1992 waged by Kremlin-backed separatists against the Moldovan army.
The
separatist authorities blamed the incidents on Ukrainian infiltrators while the
Kyiv government alleged they were false-flag attacks designed to provide a
pretext for an infusion of Russian troops, to add to the 1,500 already based
there, just as similar blasts in the Donbas preceded the 24 February Russian
invasion of Ukraine.
Moldova
holds security meeting as tensions rise over breakaway regionRead more
Those
allegations were given greater weight when residents in Transnistria received
fake SMS texts on Tuesday warning of an imminent Ukrainian attack. The Moldovan
president, Maia Sandu, convened an emergency meeting of her security council
and declared that forces were at play in Transnistria which were “interested in
destabilising the region”.
A Russian
move into Transnistria would pose an imminent threat to the sovereignty of
Moldova, a country of 2.6 million people which, like Ukraine, has shown
increasing interest in joining Nato.
It would
also menace Odesa, the Ukrainian port city which lies on the Black Sea coast
between Moldova and Russian-occupied Kherson.
Graphic
Four days
ago the commander of Russia’s central military district, Rustam Minnekayev,
said Moscow’s goals involved the seizure of southern Ukraine, so as to give
Russia control over the Black Sea coast and access to Transnistria.
On Tuesday,
Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s security council and one of
Vladimir Putin’s closest advisers, raised another grim specter, declaring that
Ukraine could fragment into “several states”, blaming such an outcome on
western intervention.
The threat
of dismemberment follows the humiliating failure of Putin’s primary war aim, to
subjugate all of Ukraine and install a friendly government in Kyiv. The massive
offensive launched in February was unable to break Ukrainian resistance while
Moscow was unable to deter Nato support.
Repeated
Russian warnings, explicitly brandishing the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal,
have had a diminishing impact. Finland and Sweden look set to declare their
readiness to join Nato next month in time for the alliance summit at the end of
June, shrugging off suggestions from Moscow that such a move would lead to the
westward deployment of Russian forces, including nuclear missiles.
On Monday,
the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, tried amplifying the threat,
accusing Nato of fighting a proxy war in Ukraine and warning that the danger of
nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated.” But barely 12 hours later,
Germany dropped its earlier escalatory reservations about supplying heavy
weapons to Ukraine, and announced that it would be sending 50 Gepard
self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
That
announcement, by the defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, was made at
Tuesday’s meeting of approximately 40 countries at Ramstein airbase, to
coordinate and enhance western military support for Kyiv that marked a raising
of the stakes by Ukraine’s backers. Announcing the UK’s own contribution of
anti-aircraft systems, defence minister James Heappey went further, saying it
would be “entirely legitimate” for the weapons to be used against supply lines
inside Russia.
In response
Russia has started bombing the supply lines bringing in western arms, targeting
railways and bridges and threatening to hit Kyiv.
As the
Ukraine war evolves, the parties to the conflict are redefining their aims.
Russia has abandoned outright conquest for now, and is seeking to carve out a
contiguous zone of occupation reaching as far as Transnistria, which Putin can
package as “Novorossiya”, the foundation for a new Russian empire.
The Biden
administration meanwhile has emphatically confirmed that its objectives go
beyond the defence of Ukraine to the hobbling of Russia’s capacity to carry out
further acts of aggression.
“What we
want to see is a free and independent Ukraine and at the end of the day, that
will involve a weakened Russia and strengthened Nato,” the chairman of the
joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, told CNN, echoing remarks made by the
defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, the day before.
“What’s at
stake here is much greater than Ukraine,” Milley added. “If Russia gets away with
this cost-free, so goes the so-called international world order and we enter an
area of serious instability.”
With the
start of this new phase in the war, a layer is being stripped away from the
buffer that has thus far kept Nato and Russia from coming into direct, hostile
contact, during the cold war and since. And if the ominous explosions in
Transnistria are auguries of a new Putin gambit, Moldova could find itself to
be the next proving ground where this dangerous new world makes itself felt.
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