Belarusian scenario in Transnistria without real threat to Ukraine. Column by Sergiy Zgurets

Russian Federation attempts to drag Transnistria into the war

Russia is trying to implement its strategy of drawing other contingents into the war against Ukraine, namely the forces located in Transnistria. To create the prerequisites for the Belarusian scenario to take place, when the potential of the Transnistrian Armed Forces can be used for military operations on the territory of Ukraine.

But whether this topic is even real.

De facto, we are talking about the fact that the military potential located in Transnistria is quite limited. These are the Russian contingent not exceeding one and a half thousand people with a small amount of military equipment and the forces of Transnistria with about seven and a half thousand personnel. If we count this together and look at the equipment that these contingents have mastered today, then we are talking about a very small amount of such equipment: only 40 tanks, about 30 infantry fighting vehicles, 100 armored personnel carriers and several Grad MLRS systems, then the contingent is insignificant in terms of combat capacity.

But this does not mean that Russia does not use other models related to the militarization of this situation.

The level of Transnistrian combat readiness increased and the level of terrorist threat also rose in three Russia's regions, where the introduction of temporary or permanent martial law is expected. Actually, such a martial law allows you to declare mobilization, this is one of the ways that can increase the number of personnel, which the Russian army currently lacks in the region.

I discussed the situation in Transnistria in detail with Defense Express expert Anton Mikhnenko.

According to him, the situation in Moldova should be considered from several aspects. Moldova takes the position that Ukraine is at war with Russia and this is a matter of relations between Ukraine and Russia, so Moldova is a neutral country and what is happening in Transnistria is a matter of internal problems. Transnistria wants to shift all responsibility to Ukraine, because, as a satellite of the Russian Federation, it plays the same tune with Russia.

Transnistria allegedly plays the Kremlin's game, but does not want to interfere in this conflict. The question is that the forces that exist in Transnistria have already become accustomed to life in 30 years. This is an opportunity to earn money and do business, there is a big business going on there and no one wants to destroy it. Therefore Transnistria residents are against interference in this military confrontation.

On the conditional Moldovan-Transnistrian border, residents are leaving for the territory of Moldova because they understand that if mobilization is announced, they will fight in Ukraine.

Demonstration gesture of bridge destruction across the Dniester Estuary

The bridge across the estuary (on April 26, due to missile attacks, the bridge from the Belgorod-Dnistrovsky region leading to Odesa was damaged) is the only railway connection in this direction that goes south, but not the only transport connection between South Ukraine, the Reni region and Izmail. There is also a transport corridor in the north of the estuary, motor transport between Ukraine and the southern part of the country. Russia tried to demonstrate that it could get this region and destroy transport links, limit the delivery of goods from the south to Odesa. If Russian troops try to move to enter Odesa from the south, then Ukrainian troops would destroy this bridge. Therefore, this is more of a demonstrative gesture to show the Kremlin that the Russian troops are doing something.

In this situation, there is no real military threat from Transnistria, our potential allows us to cope with this.

Missile strikes on the cowards principle

At the same time, the demonstration of Russian power through the use of missile weapons is the component which we must live with for some time.
I would like to assess the situation that has occurred today with the use of Russian cruise missiles following the results of yesterday and today. Yesterday was the most significant indicator in terms of the number of new cruise missiles that the Russian Federation used against our railway stations. The number of strikes was known, but today we counted the missiles and it turned out that 13 X-101 class missiles were hit. By the way, this is the latest missile, which is currently used in the Russian Federation from the TU-95 or TU-160 bombers. This is a way to strike on the cowards principle because they strike without entering the territory of Ukraine. In fact, such a missile flies at an altitude of about 40-100 meters and its peculiarity lies in the fact that it has a flight range of up to two thousand kilometers. This is an option to keep Russian aircraft safe, although we hope it won't be for long.

By the way, Bellingcat recently reported that the Russians have exhausted about 70% of their high-precision weapons. We made our own calculations, if we are talking directly about Kh-101 missiles, then today this arsenal is from 200 to 500 units.