France and Great Britain want to control Transnistria in order to attack and conquer Ukraine's Black Sea coast, according to a 19th-century plan, claims a political scientist from Tiraspol quoted by Russian propaganda.
NEWS: Everything happening around the former Moldovan SSR is part of England’s and France’s old plans to take control of the Black Sea. The statement belongs to political scientist Andrei Safonov, quoted by PolitNavigator, commenting on press articles about a possible operation to forcibly change the status of Transnistria, with the participation of the Ukrainian army and direct support from British structures.
[...] "Where could Anglo-French forces enter Ukraine to capture the main prize—the coastline from Kherson to Odesa? Only through a single military and transport hub, formed by Romania and Moldova," explains the expert.
In his opinion, there are two scenarios that cannot be ruled out:
"First: Westerners will try to convince Chisinau and Bucharest to invade the PMR and occupy the republic. Once they control Transnistria, the Anglo-French will head south toward Ukraine.
Second: Westerners will move their troops around Transnistria without attacking it, trying to deploy some of their forces along the Transnistrian borders and suffocate it economically by blocking imports and exports. In this way, the Anglo-French – in the current context – would try to accomplish the task they failed to achieve during the Crimean War of 1853–1856: domination of the Black Sea,” says Andrei Safonov.
The expert sees the sources of enthusiasm in Paris and London in the fact that the Americans have somewhat reduced their activity in this region, as well as in the fact that Moldovan President Maia Sandu is a staunch and fierce opponent of Donald Trump's administration and a representative of the globalists, embodied by Biden's former team and the current leaders of France and Great Britain, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer.”
NARRATIVE: France and Great Britain want Transnistria so they can seize Ukraine's Black Sea coastline.
PURPOSE: The statements aim to fuel fears of an imminent war and portray the West as a historical aggressor in order to justify Russia's military presence in Transnistria. They seek to legitimize the maintenance of the separatist enclave as a "buffer zone" under Russian protection and, at the same time, have Ukrainians distrust their Western partners and their support, given that some European countries have expressed their willingness to send troops to guarantee a potential ceasefire agreement.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The alleged plan by the UK and France to take control of part of Ukraine's territory and a region of the Black Sea is a variation on narratives about military attacks on the Transnistrian region. The European NATO member states are currently focused on fortifying their eastern flank in the face of an increasingly visible threat from Russia. The absurd scenario presented by the Tiraspol MP Safonov would in fact mean a direct confrontation with Russia, which considers Transnistria its area of interest and has troops there; the Russians also have forces in part of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, which could not be captured in its entirety without confrontation with them.
Such an action would be illogical, given that most NATO countries (including France and the UK) are helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian forces. NATO's goal is to strengthen Ukraine in order to prevent Russia's expansion, and an attack on Odesa would effectively take the country out of the war and leave it vulnerable to Russia.
The argument that Paris and London planned the operation partly because they would have Maia Sandu's support in Chisinau once again speaks to the seriousness of the scenarios put forward by the author—the Republic of Moldova is not only a neutral state, but its military force is insignificant compared to other regional actors.
In fact, rumors about NATO troops being deployed on the border with Transnistria have recently circulated in Chișinău, but have been denied by the authorities.
As for the so-called "historical" arguments, they represent a veritable jumble of historical data and events simply because they took place in the region over the last two centuries. Safonov says that France and Great Britain want to control the Black Sea according to a plan tried during the Crimean War (1853–1856). However, that war was started by Russia, through its invasion of the Romanian principalities, and France and Great Britain intervened in that conflict because it was in their interest for the Ottoman Empire to survive. Russia lost the Crimean War, so if France and Great Britain had wanted a presence in the Black Sea, they could have forced it even then. The Montreux Convention regulates the status of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and naval transit between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, including the presence in the Black Sea of warships from non-riparian countries. This presence is limited in terms of duration, tonnage, and the type of weapons on board the ships, but no restrictions are imposed on coastal countries. Even if France and the United Kingdom were to capture part of the Black Sea coastline through a military campaign, this would not make them coastal countries (this requires international recognition), and transit through the straits would still be restricted, which means that there will be no Anglo-French fleets in the Black Sea anyway.
LOCAL CONTEXT/ETHOS: In recent years, Russian propaganda has intensified a media campaign about Moldova's alleged preparations, with the support (in other cases at the behest) of the West and/or Ukraine, for an attack on the separatist region of Transnistria. The scenarios and goals presented vary: to open a second front against Russia (given that Transnistria does not share a border with Russia or the current front line); to take control of the military depot in Cobasna and transfer the ammunition there to the Ukrainian army, even though it dates back to the Soviet era and many military experts say it is unusable.
Veridica has debunked several alarmist falsehoods about attacks being prepared against Transnistria, either by Ukraine , or by Romania .
The region in eastern Moldova known as Transnistria was annexed to the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic during the USSR, while regions in the south and north were transferred to Ukraine.
With the collapse of the USSR, Transnistria declared its independence, and in 1992 an armed conflict broke out. The separatist enclave, supported by Moscow, also has an army depot with approximately 20,000 tons of ammunition, guarded by a Russian military contingent.
Economically affected by Russia's war against Ukraine, through narratives of imminent attacks and war, the region's population is now being manipulated into seeing Moscow as their only salvation.
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