The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, in which Russian troops have been stationed for several decades per the consensus of all stakeholders in that former Soviet Republic’s undeclared civil war at the time, has recently suffered several terrorist attacks in just the past two days. Its leadership decided to raise the terrorist threat level to red in response. These developments hint at the opening of another front connected to Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, which also follows Russian Major General Minnekayev talking about how one of the evolving goals is to expand control across Southern Ukraine up to that unrecognized republic in light of Mariupol’s game-changing liberation.

What appears to be happening is that the US-led West is expanding its proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, which was de facto publicly acknowledged after Secretary of Defense Austin’s declaration that his country plans to “weaken” its rival via that conflict, to Transnistria. There are several strategic reasons for doing so. First, America sees an opportunity to potentially support Moldova’s reconquest of that region by backing NATO-member Romania’s potential efforts to assist it, which could also culminate in the (re-)unification of those two countries per the plan that some nationalists in both of them are aspiring to fulfill.

The second objective is to divide Russia’s military focus along the Southern Ukrainian front (which the Transnistrian Conflict can be conceptualized as being part of in light of the special operation) and potentially also deal its armed forces a humiliating defeat. That goal is possible but of course not inevitable. Its soldiers are cut off from the rest of their main force in neighboring Ukraine, though, which could make them tempting targets. Nevertheless, there should be no doubt that they’d respond in accordance with their right to self-defense if they came under conventional attack from Moldova, Romania, and/or Ukraine.

And finally, the last reason why the US-led West is likely behind the latest spree of terrorist attacks in Transnistria is because they might be trying to provoke Russia into beefing up its presence there so that it can then be spun as it “invading another independent country”. That would fuel the unprecedentedly intense anti-Russian infowar and perhaps also create the “publicly plausible” pretext for accelerating Moldova’s potential NATO membership along the lines of the Finnish–Swedish model (including de facto protection prior to its formal admission) and/or its (re-)unification with neighboring Romania that could lead to the same military-strategic outcome.

The larger trend is that the US-led West might have concluded that Europe’s geopolitical map is once again irreversibly being changed as a result of the events that they provoked in Ukraine from 2014 onward (i.e. Crimea’s reunification with Russia, Moscow’s recognition of the Donbass Republics’ independence, potential similar such separatist referendums across Southern Ukraine) so they might sense a chance to initiate other changes that work to their advantage. That could explain why they’re working so hard right now to destabilize the situation in Transnistria. If that’s indeed their motive, then it can’t be discounted that forced geopolitical changes elsewhere like in the Balkans might be next.