Last month’s declaration by the breakaway Moldovan region of Transniestria that it wanted to join Russia, coupled with a spike in anonymous bomb threats in Chișinău, looked like “a kind of prelude to an operation in Moldova”, Oleg Serebrian, Moldova’s deputy prime minister, told The Times. Transniestria hosts at least 1,500 Russian troops. Russia-friendly separatists in Moldova’s Gagauzia region have also begun calling to split away.
