- Almost 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the conflict over the Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria is one of the issues still unresolved.
- Ekot’s correspondent traveled there and received an exclusive interview with Transnistria’s self-proclaimed Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatiev.
- “I wish we did not have another 30 years ahead of us with an unresolved conflict,” he said.
– I would like the outside world to realize that there are de facto already two subjects: Moldova on the one hand, Transnistria on the other, says Vitaly Ignatiev.
In Transnistria he holds the title Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the outside world, he is called the region’s representative or chief negotiator because Transnistria, three decades since its independence was declared, is not recognized as a separate country but as part of Moldova. The Moldova that broke away from in connection with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the mainly Russian-speaking region between the Dniester river and the Ukrainian border, they never wanted to leave the Soviet Union.
On the main street in Transnistria’s largest city, Tiraspol, at the height of the huge statue of Lenin that stands outside the parliament known as the Supreme Soviet, pensioner Ljudmila says that she would most like to belong to Russia.
“Russia is a great power and their president Putin cares about his people,” she said.
Like many others in Transnistria, Ljudmila has a Russian passport and receives his pension from Russia. Russian support, politically and financially, is very important for the region.
Stuck in the park down by the river Dniester, Tiraspolbon Jelena says that she most of all wants to move from here, as almost all her friends have already done.
– There are no jobs here, wages are very low. We have lived for 30 years of stagnation where nothing changes for the better, she says.