DISINFO: There may be a provocation in Transnistria to cause a NATO intervention
SUMMARY
Moldova is now headed by a pro-Western politician that will do everything at hand to benefit not her country but her sponsors, and the fact that the first thing that she said is that the Russian troops in a peace mission in Transnistria must leave is no coincidence. We can even expect an attempt of an armed occupation of Transnistria, perhaps by irregular military forces or by demonstrators in fashion of a colour revolution or unconventional war, trying to provoke a clash with Russian forces and then favour a NATO intervention in the territory. The West is now using Transnistria in its strategy to apply pressure on Moscow.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative against Moldova’s president-elect Maia Sandu, aiming to discredit her victory in the 2020 election against pro-Russian candidate Igor Dodon by framing her as a Western puppet. On November 30, 2020, Sandu called for the withdrawal of the around 1,000 Russian troops deployed in Transnistria as a necessary condition to solve the conflict and asked to replace them by a OSCE civilian observer mission, a move that was strongly rejected by Moscow, which called it “irresponsible”. It is in this context that this disinformation story appeared in the Spanish version of Sputnik. The claim that an attempt to provoke clashes with Russian forces to favour a NATO intervention in Transnistria is a conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence.
See other examples of these disinformation narratives, such as claims that Maia Sandu won thanks to election fraud; that she has advised Zelenskyy to start a military campaign against Donbas; that her mission is to help Biden to create a sanitary cordon around Russia; that she wants to arrange a second Karabakh in Transnistria, where Romania and Moldova have secret plans to expel Russian troops; or that after her victory, the collapse of Moldova is inevitable.