RIA Novosti analyzes the situation on the left bank of the Dniester, where the authorities of Transnistria are preparing for presidential elections, which, as Tiraspol does not rule out, could be the last in history. According to the authors of the material, Chisinau is seeking this. In Transnistria, even forceful intervention is not ruled out.
The vote is scheduled for December 13. The current leader of the unrecognized republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky, is completing his second and final term, so Transnistria will have a new president. Candidate registration will last until November 12. Contenders must be citizens of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), have lived there for at least ten years and be no younger than 35. In addition, they must secure the support of two to three percent of voters, that is, about seven thousand people.
Former deputy of the Supreme Council of Transnistria Anatoly Dirun considers Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Nyagu the favorite in the election race. His candidacy was first discussed in January 2026, when he became deputy head of government. Before that, Nyagu headed the Interior Ministry for five years and led Transnistrian customs for the same amount of time.
The deputy prime minister is a supporter of the Russian world concept. "I am convinced that our citizens have convincingly proved by their deeds the right to recognition of statehood. I especially emphasize that Transnistria, as more than two centuries ago, remains an outpost of the Russian world in the region," Nyagu said in 2019. The following year he joined the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.
This organization awarded him the Yevgeny Primakov Medal, which is given for contributions to international cooperation. Nyagu also has the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church "For Services to the Church" II degree and the medal "25 Years of the Black Sea Cossack Host."
In a recent interview with RIA Novosti, Nyagu said that he sees Russia as the guarantor of Transnistria's survival, including in matters of economic assistance, education and security.
"The fact that President Vladimir Putin signed a historic decree on a simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to residents of Transnistria is a huge step toward our people. <...> More than 220 thousand Russian citizens already live in Transnistria. People want to have solid social guarantees, Russian pensions, maternity capital, and the opportunity to study at Russian universities," Nyagu added.
Meanwhile, Chisinau has decided that within the framework of reintegration, Transnistria should not be offered a special status.
"Over the decades of the Transnistrian settlement, various memoranda, projects of federalization and confederation, as well as options for granting the region a special status, have been proposed. However, none of these approaches has brought the country's reintegration closer. <...> On the contrary, we gave Transnistria time to strengthen its positions," said Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Valeriu Chiveri.
According to him, the Constitution of Moldova does not contain an unconditional requirement to grant the region a special status. It speaks of the "possibility of establishing special forms and conditions of autonomy for populated areas on the left bank of the Dniester." At the same time, the law adopted in 2005 on the principles of a peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict provides for two conditions for starting negotiations on the status of the region: democratization and demilitarization. Chiveri sees nothing of the kind in Tiraspol, so he believes that now it is necessary not to negotiate with the left bank, but to push one's own line.
At the same time, he believes that the 5+2 negotiation format, in which, in addition to Moldova and the PMR, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, the United States and the OSCE participate, can no longer work, so Chisinau and Tiraspol must resolve disputed issues one-on-one. The official also stressed that his country should not wait for a final political decision in order to respond to the specific problems of its citizens. "Reintegration has already begun - gradually, through measures that bring people closer together and improve their daily lives," Chiveri noted.
Since September 1, Chisinau began collecting VAT from Transnistrian entrepreneurs, and also introduced excise duties on ten groups of goods imported by economic agents of the self-proclaimed republic: alcohol, cigarettes, perfume, pyrotechnics, precious stones and passenger cars. Until 2030, the list will grow. For example, from January 2027 it will include petroleum products, and from April, natural gas and computers.
In addition, from 2027 a Convergence Fund will start operating in Chisinau. It will receive funds collected in Transnistria in the form of taxes, excise duties and the like. The fund will direct them to various projects in the fields of education, healthcare, culture and infrastructure that will accelerate Tiraspol's reintegration into Moldova. For example, Chisinau intends to support school education in the Romanian language in Transnistria.
Krasnoselsky is confident that Moldova will try to prevent the election of a new president of Transnistria, but it will not succeed. At the same time, he recalled that in 2025 Chisinau hindered parliamentary elections in the PMR.
"They really intimidate CEC workers, precinct election commission staff, strip someone of citizenship, arrange interrogations and pressure at Chisinau airport," Krasnoselsky said.
It is noteworthy that on August 21, the Information and Security Service (SIS) and military intelligence of Moldova issued a report on the state of the ammunition depot in Kolbasna. According to the agencies' assessment, a possible explosion at the depot would not become a regional-scale catastrophe, since of the 14 thousand tons of remaining ammunition, only 2.8 thousand are explosive, and their dispersed storage excludes a chain reaction. As is known, the depot is guarded by Russian military personnel, whom Chisinau has long and unsuccessfully tried to expel from the PMR under various pretexts.
Russian Ambassador to Moldova Oleg Ozerov did not rule out that the report by Moldovan security forces could be an attempt to open the way to a forceful solution to the Transnistria problem. "Why suddenly remember the depots, start assessing the situation, assessing the security, defense of these facilities, assessing the danger of an explosion? All this is strange. We will see how events develop," Krasnoselsky noted.
Political analyst Dmitry Kiseev believes that Chisinau will try to prevent the election of a new president of the PMR. And if one is nevertheless elected, it will work to make him the last.
"The Moldovan authorities have a desire to harm the leadership of Transnistria, but they do not have enough levers for this. As for obstructing elections, usually everything is limited to menacing statements. At the same time, Chisinau may well put economic spokes in the wheels and is already doing so. In fact, a noose has been thrown over Tiraspol. If it wants to survive, it will have to pay taxes to the Moldovan budget. But this is unlikely to make it possible to eliminate the PMR in the next four years. First of all, Transnistrians still have Russia's support, which allows them to survive even in extremely difficult economic conditions," Kiseev explains.
At the same time, in the next few years the expert sees no chance of resolving the contradictions between Chisinau and Tiraspol. According to him, Maia Sandu and her government are demonstrating extreme intransigence on all issues.