Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Grigory Karasin and Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky. Photo: president.gospmr.org

Moscow has dismissed the recent proposal of the Speaker of the Moldova parliament, Andrian Candu, for Russia to pay compensation for illegally stationing its army in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region as “provocative”.

Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Tuesday that such statements would not help resolve the Transnistrian conflict.

“At the end of last year, due to the efforts of the international community, and the efforts of Tiraspol and Chisinau, some problems were solved. We have to focus on those, not on provocative messages,” Karasin stated.

He argued also that Russia’s peacekeepers, and the Russian Troops guarding an ammunition depot in Transnistria, were separate.

Speaker Candu last week told the Latvian publication Latvijas Avize that Russian troops deployed on the left bank of the Dniester river were illegal occupation forces and that Russia had violated international law.

He said Moldova was thinking of hiring an international law firm to calculate the losses caused by the Russian presence in Transnistria over 25 years, which could amount to billions of dollars.

Russia committed itself in 1999 in Istanbul to withdrawing its troops from Moldovan territory but has not acted on its commitment, despite numerous calls from Chisinau and the international community.

It stations about 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers in the breakaway region and they regularly hold joint military maneuvers with the Transnistrian military.

In 2017, the number of this kind of military exercises increased, alarming the pro-Western government in Chisinau, which asked Moscow to retain itself from such actions.