Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep! Jack here, running the show on leap day. Robbie is still out in India.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Another breakaway pro-Russian region asks for the Kremlin’s help, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announces he’s stepping down from that role, and the Pentagon chief gets raked over the coals in Congress for not informing U.S. President Joe Biden of his hospitalization.
Big Trouble in Little Transnistria
It was a surreal scene, one that evoked the Kremlin parlor game that preceded Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. First, Vadim Krasnoselsky—the leader of the pro-Russian microstate of Transnistria, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine—called for an extraordinary session of the Congress of Deputies in mid-February.
The assembly hadn’t convened in 18 years, since George W. Bush was president of the United States, but Krasnoselsky said it was urgent: The tiny Black Sea country of Moldova, which Transnistria broke away from after a brief war in the early 1990s—was putting social and economic pressure on it and “violating the rights” of Transnistrians. On Jan. 1, Moldova imposed new customs duties on imports to and exports from Transnistria.
On Wednesday, that meeting finally took place, just one day before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s yearly state of the nation speech. One by one, lawmakers raised their hands to vote in favor of a resolution calling for Russia to come to their aid. Like the Ukrainian pro-Russian separatist republics in the Donbas, they said they wanted protection.
And although the lawmakers stopped short of asking for Russia to annex the territory, the vote immediately sparked concerns in the West that Putin might do just that.
“Given Russia’s increasingly aggressive role in Europe, we are watching Russia’s actions in Transnistria and the broader situation there very closely,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday.
Response. Putin hasn’t taken the bait so far. Coughing through the last lines of his speech, a day before dissident Alexei Navalny’s funeral is set to take place in Moscow, Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons if Western nations put military boots on the ground in Ukraine, but he did not say anything about annexing Transnistria—or mention it at all.
Viorel Ursu, Moldova’s ambassador to the United States, told SitRep in a text message that separatist authorities in Transnistria have made requests for help from Russia at least three times in the past two years, including twice when they were in Moscow. He also seemed less concerned that annexation would happen.
“The assumptions regarding request for annexation—largely spread in the press before the event—were in fact well-placed disinformation and [an] example of panic-generating informational pressure on Moldova,” Ursu said. “I believe the main reason behind this congress was to remind Russia that they still exist and to ask for more funding from the Kremlin.”
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, accused Moldova and the West of needlessly stoking tensions with speculation about a possible Russian annexation. “NATO is literally trying to shape another Ukraine,” she said.
But the breakaway province’s leaders are appealing to Russia using the same kind of rhetoric that the Kremlin used to justify its invasion of Ukraine: that Moscow has a duty to protect Russian speakers. Transnistria’s Congress of Deputies called on Russia’s two houses of parliament to “protect Transnistria in the face of increasing pressure” from Moldova given that “more than 220,000 Russian citizens permanently reside in the region.” Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he was “concerned” about Russian citizens in Transnistria.
Flash point. For more than three decades, Transnistria has been considered a possible flash point for a conflict in Russia’s near-abroad. About the geographic size of Anchorage, Alaska, with a population about the size of that of New Orleans, Louisiana, it has hosted small legions of Russian troops since its war in the ’90s.
So it wouldn’t be a huge swath of territory to occupy should Putin decide to annex it. But as Russia’s military is recuperating amid the war in Ukraine, and with Putin planning to swell the ranks to 1.3 million troops, officials and experts caution that it would still be a heavy lift.
Russia has 1,500 soldiers in Transnistria, the remnants of the former 14th Guards Army that was based in Moldova when it was a Soviet territory. Mihai Popsoi, the former speaker of the Moldovan parliament who is now the country’s top diplomat, told SitRep in October that many of the troops are Moldovan passport holders, keen to earn an extra buck.
“They haven’t rotated since 2014-2015, after the annexation of Crimea,” Popsoi said. “Given that they haven’t rotated, their military capability is questionable.”
Moldovan officials estimate that the Russians have stashed about 22,000 tons of Soviet-era ammunition in Transnistria, making it the largest repository of Soviet-grade ammo in Eastern Europe.
There are also about 300 to 400 Ukrainian and Moldovan peacekeepers in the breakaway province, a mission that the Moldovan government has been trying to shutter to transition to a civilian job.
Ursu said that while his country’s government expects more harsh rhetoric from Tiraspol, the Transnistrian capital, Moldova doesn’t anticipate significant changes on the ground.
Spoiler alert. But even if Putin doesn’t act on Transnistria’s call for aid, the Kremlin could still act as a spoiler in Moldova’s upcoming elections, which are expected to take place in the fall. Moldova’s pro-Western government previously warned of a coup plot led by the now-deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenary Wagner Group.
“We are likely to see more of this type of action in the coming months,” Ursu said, referring to this week’s vote in Transnistria, “in order to instill fear and uncertainty in Moldova and in this way to shape the outcome of presidential elections and of the EU referendum.”
Moldova is trying to insulate itself. The defense budget has moved from 0.3 to 0.55 percent of GDP, and Moldova is investing in new radars to ward off Russian infringement of its airspace. It has European Union aspirations. It has boosted military spending by nearly 70 percent—but it’s still under 1 percent of the country’s GDP.
Popsoi, in his new job as foreign minister and first deputy prime minister, told SitRep at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month that Moldovan officials have seen evidence of Russian disinformation and sabotage, including bribing and intimidating voters. And the Moldovans are building a new strategic government communications center charged with identifying and stanching Russian narratives and malign influence.
“The Russians are relying on proxies that they have in the Moldovan political system, some fugitive oligarchs that are outside of the country that are using the money that they’ve stolen from the Moldovan people and probably Russian money as well to undermine the democratic process in Moldova,” Popsoi said. The goal for Russia is “ideally for them, [to] change the government and have a Russian and anti-Ukrainian government, anti-Western government.”
Let’s Get Personnel
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is set to step down as Senate minority leader in November, he announced on Wednesday. McConnell has faced health issues over the past year, including freezing up at a press conference and being hospitalized for a concussion after falling at a Washington hotel. McConnell has been noted for his traditional pro-Ukraine and pro-NATO views at a time when the Trump wing of the Republican Party has been turning away from America’s international alliances.
Adm. Sir Tony Radakin has been asked by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stay on as the chief of the U.K. defense staff, the British military’s top job, until fall of next year, the Telegraph reports. Radakin, who had been set to retire in December, has been recognized for his relationship with top Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.
U.S. President Joe Biden has tapped former Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello as the U.S. special envoy to Sudan. Robbie first reported that Perriello was on track to be Biden’s envoy to the war-torn country back in December.
Daleep Singh is returning to the Biden administration as the deputy national security advisor for international economics. He was a key early architect of U.S. sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine before leaving the administration in April 2022. Axios first reported on Singh’s return to the White House.
Cedric N. Lee is now the director for defense policy and strategy at the National Security Council (NSC). He was previously the NSC’s director for Southeast Asia.
On the Button
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Hot water. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin got a tongue-lashing from the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee on Thursday for failing to notify the White House, Congress, and the public about his hospitalization for a prostate cancer diagnosis that forced him to delegate power to his deputies for the better part of a week last month. House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers called Austin’s failure to notify Biden “totally unacceptable,” especially with U.S. allies at war both in Europe and the Middle East.
“Wars were raging in Ukraine and Israel; our ships were under fire in the Red Sea,” Rogers said. “But the commander in chief did not know that his secretary of defense was out of action.”
Austin replied that there was a “breakdown in notification” but said he never intended to keep his hospitalization from the White House or Congress. He also emphasized that there was no gap in authorities and “never a break in command and control” of the Pentagon.
NATO’s nerve center. In the summer of 2022, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raging on NATO’s doorstep, Gen. Chris Cavoli, the four-star U.S. Army general tapped as its military chief, realized the alliance wasn’t up to the job of defending all 10 million square miles of its turf. In the past two years, Cavoli and his top lieutenants have transformed Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE)—NATO’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium—into a Cold War-style command that can call up troop reinforcements and map out long-range military strikes on Russian soil even before a war breaks out.
Jack went to SHAPE’s headquarters in Mons and met with more than 20 current and former NATO nation officials to report this feature over four months.
Snooze the alarms. Remember in late January, when a top British military official, Gen. Patrick Sanders, sent the U.K. tabloids into a frenzy by calling on Britons to get ready for a World War II level of mobilization? His boss wasn’t too happy about that. Radakin, the British military chief, issued a further walkback of Sanders’s comments at a defense conference on Tuesday.
“I worry the public debate that has played out over recent weeks risks becoming confused and some remarks are alarmist,” Radakin said. “No one in the Ministry of Defence is talking about conscription in any traditional sense of the term.” The Times also reports that Radakin gave Sanders a stern talking-to behind the scenes.
Snapshot
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference at the end of the international conference aimed at strengthening Western support for Ukraine, at the Élysée presidential palace in Paris, on Feb. 26. Macron caused an uproar among other European and U.S. officials when he said the alliance shouldn’t rule out putting foreign troops in Ukraine.Gonzalo Fuentes / Pool / AFP
Put on Your Radar
Thursday, Feb. 29: Reconciliation talks between the two major Palestinian factions, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, the top political power in the Gaza Strip, are taking place in Moscow.
Friday, March 1: Iran holds elections for parliament and the assembly of experts. Both elections must be approved by a body of clerics appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Biden welcomes Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni to the White House. Newly elected Finnish President Alexander Stubb is set to begin his term in office.
Saturday, March 2: Meloni travels to Canada to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Monday, March 4: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hosts a special three-day summit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in Melbourne.
Tuesday, March 5: Macron visits the Czech Republic.
Quote of the Week
“We will eat grass rather than become a Russian colony again.”
—Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington this week, on Poland’s motivation to boost defense spending to 4 percent of GDP.
This Week’s Most Read
- Two Years On, What’s Next in Ukraine? by FP Contributors
- Russia’s War Machine Runs on Western Parts by Amy Mackinnon
- A Geopolitical Hard Landing Is All Too Possible by Jared Cohen