Russia has removed all Soviet-built anti-aircraft missiles from its vast arms depots in a Moldova province to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. The missiles were flown from Trans-Dniester Province to the Moscow on Saturday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement released Monday. A spokesman for the ministry wouldn’t say how many weapons were evacuated, but he said that no anti-aircraft missiles are left in Trans-Dniester. The Defense Ministry said in the statement that it had decided to remove the weapons to "minimize the potential danger of terrorists seizing the portable and other air defense missiles and using them for terror goals."
Wonder if any of them found their way to Iraq?
About 2,000 Russian troops remain in Trans-Dniester, guarding giant Soviet-era ammunition depots and acting as peacekeepers. The Russian military was deployed in the separatist province to end a 1992 war that killed some 1,500 people and left Trans-Dniester de-facto under the Russian thumb independent.
| Put the "independent" in non-BBC-style quotes and add "and not a part of Rumania." |
Russia had earlier promised the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that it would withdraw the troops and ammunition by the end of this year, but later said it would be difficult to fulfill this obligation. It has since put forward a plan to extend its troops’ presence in the region.
They like the place.
Claus Neukirch, the OSCE spokesman in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, said Monday that the Russian authorities hadn’t given OSCE officials authorization to inspect the cargo planes.
"So piss off!"
The OSCE and other international agencies have repeatedly expressed concern about allegations that Trans-Dniester has evolved into a center for major weapon smuggling rings.
And this differentiates it from the rest of Russia how?
| Moldova has a Rumanian-speaking majority but also has a substantial Russian-speaking minority that doesn't want to learn another alphabet. In '92, Aleksandr Lebed, who was to become Yeltsin's vice president briefly, was commander of the 14th Army. The Moldovans' leader was a guy named Snegur, which always struck me as something spelled backwards. The Russian-speakers, under a guy named Ivanov (not even sure if that was his real name; it's kind of like "Smith" or "Jones" in Russia) decided that rather than breaking off from Russia and uniting with Rumania, where Moldova logically fits, they'd form the Dniestr Republic. At the time in the general area the locals had developed the habit of driving up to Soviet installations and beating up any guards that didn't get out of the way, then stealing military equipment, like tanks or BMPs, which they'd then drive up and down the streets of rival ethnic neighborhoods, shooting them up until they ran out of ammunition or gas. This was pretty common in Azerbaijan and Armenia, and in some parts of southern Ukraine. Ivanov's clique was fairly indignant that Lebed didn't let this happen, and in fact stood his ground against them, even while preventing the Rumanian-speakers from beating/shooting up the Dniestr Russers. Moldova didn't become part of Rumania, but it also didn't become the Dneistr Republic. |
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