TUE, SEP 7, 2021
Earlier attempts to stir up pro-Kremlin separatism in the region fell flat in 2015, but there is no room for complacency
Bessarabia is a highly multicultural region in southwestern Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast that shares many of the characteristics which helped facilitate the 2014 Kremlin takeover of Crimea. Ethnically diverse and physically isolated from the rest of Ukraine, Bessarabia is a largely Russian-speaking region of around 600,000 where Kremlin media enjoys unusually high audience penetration and street-level identity issues are colored by an undercurrent of Russophile sentiment dating back to the czarist era.
Meanwhile, the nearby Kremlin-controlled Transnistria separatist republic in neighboring Moldova boasts a significant Russian military presence. These Russian troops could potentially repeat the role of the “little green men” who seized Crimea for Vladimir Putin seven years ago.
Like Crimea, Bessarabia is physically remote with strikingly poor logistical connections to the rest of Ukraine. A single bridge with one lane in each direction connects the region to the other half of Odesa Oblast over the Dniester River, while a second connecting route by road must pass through Moldovan territory in the Dniester estuary, coming just a few dozen kilometers from the Russian-occupied region of Transnistria.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/could-vladimir-putin-repeat-his-crimean-conquest-in-southwestern-ukraine/
