Two months into the invasion of Ukraine, a Russian military commander suggested Friday that Moscow aims to establish a corridor through southern Ukraine to Transnistria, a breakaway republic in eastern Moldova.
“Control over the south of Ukraine is another way out to Transnistria, where there are also facts of oppression of the Russian-speaking population,” said Rustam Minnekaev, acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
It was unclear whether Minnekaev’s statement reflects the official Kremlin line. The comment surprised some analysts, since Russia tried and failed in the early weeks of the war to advance on southwestern Ukraine — the area it would need to secure to reach the border with Transnistria.
Further down they give the history of the place
The small Eastern European country of Moldova, sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, used to be part of Romania. It was integrated into the Soviet Union in 1940. The collapse of the Soviet Union five decades later triggered a civil conflict in the early 1990s between the newly independent Republic of Moldova and separatists in Transnistria, who wanted to maintain Soviet ties.
Transnistria, a thin strip of land that runs along Moldova’s border with Ukraine, has a population of about 500,000. No country — not even Russia — recognizes the territory as independent. But it functions as a separate nation, where Moldovan authorities admit they have no control.
Russian troops have been stationed in the area for decades as “peacekeepers,” with an estimated 1,500 there today. Moldovans make fun of the sliver of land as a backwater stuck in the Soviet era, where Lenin statues remain, international bank cards don’t work and a monopolistic company, Sheriff, controls virtually everything.
Moldova is neutral and has said it isn't interested in joining the EU.