ORPHANS OF HISTORY

A MID THE ONGOING WAR IN UKRAINE and between the fragile borders that crisscross the former Soviet Union, the self-proclaimed Republic of Transnistria, which broke away from Moldova more than 30 years ago after a brief but bloody conflict, remains locked in deep political and diplomatic isolation.

- 

Home to about 450,000 people, Transnistria is a narrow strip of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, along the eastern bank of the Dniester River. Its de facto capital, Tiraspol, lies less than 100km from the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. Though small in size - about 200km long- the region holds outsized strategic importance, sitting on a key corridor between the Black Sea and central Europe.

Tanks on display in the streets of Tiraspol come from the Dniester war, also known as the Transnistrian war or Moldovan civil war. This post-Soviet conflict in 1992 pitted the Transnistrian army (supported by Russia) against the Moldovan armed forces on the banks of the Dniester River. The conflict caused about 1,000 deaths.

This separatist region has its own institutions and government but is not officially recognised as a nation by any UN member state - not even by Russia, which maintains about 1,500 troops in the territory, nominally as "peacekeepers" but in practice as a means of projecting influence over Moldova.

This lack of recognition leaves Transnistria in a grey zone of international law, cut off from global organisations and trapped in its postSoviet legacy. While other former Soviet republics have integrated into international structures and forged new political paths, Transnistria has remained firmly rooted in a bygone Soviet past.