The separatist strip of land in eastern Moldova is, in effect, an exclave of Russia -- and a base for the Kremlin's forces.

Located between Ukraine and the EU member Romania, Moldova has received increased international media coverage since Russia's full-scale war invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. In addition to coverage of pro-EU and pro-Russia parties battling for parliamentary control, there has been increased international reporting on the internationally unrecognized Kremlin-aligned Republic of Transnistria in eastern Moldova.

Meaning "land beyond the Dniester," the name Transnistria refers to the area along the eastern lower reaches of the Dniester River. At the end of the 18th century, the region it was annexed by the Russian Empire. During the Soviet era, Transnistria was initially part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Josef Stalin created the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic after annexing Bessarabia in 1940 as a result of his nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. The area now known as Transnistria is a strip of land about 200 kilometers (120 miles) long and only a few kilometers wide in places along the left bank of the Dniester River. It makes up about 10% of the territory of Moldova.

An estimated 360,000 people live in Transnistria, about 13% of Moldova's total population of 2.8 million. According to a 2015 census, 29.1% of inhabitants identified as Russian, 28.6% as Moldovan and 22.9% as Ukrainian; 14% did not provide information about their ethnicity.

Travel to and from Transnistria is possible, but is monitored and controlled by illegal "border checks" carried out by police and Russian soldiers. Journalists are not officially allowed to enter the country. Inside the territory, residents are subject to rigorous surveillance.

As part of a broad national revival movement in the late 1980s, reform-minded members of the Moldavian Soviet Republic's Communist Party -- the majority of whom were Romanian speakers -- determined that a Stalin-era decree was outdated and Romanian, then still called Moldovan, could once again be written in Latin script instead of Cyrillic, and declared Moldovan to be an official language alongside Russian.

Many non-Romanian-speaking people feared that Moldova would reunify with Romania. In September 1990, some Communists, mostly Russians, proclaimed a new Soviet republic on the narrow strip of land on the left bank of the Dniester River, which they later christened the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic. To this day, no country, not even Russia, has recognized the territory.

The Republic of Moldova gained independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991. Fighting between forces loyal to the forces of the government of the new independent Moldova and Soviel-aligned separatists -- supported by the 14th Russian Army, numerous "volunteer fighters" from Russia and Russian weapons -- broke out in the spring of 1992. The fighting was not considered a civil war, as the vast majority of Moldovans, including in Transnistria itself, did not support the separatists. Rather, it was Russia's first post-Soviet war against a country that had freed itself from the empire. In 1999, at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) summit in Istanbul, Russia committed to withdrawing its troops from Transnistria, but has never followed through.

The separatists have maintained and expanded a Soviet-style dictatorship in Transnistria. The ruling Renewal party holds 29 seats in the 33-member Supreme Council, with the other four occupied by "independent" deputies. Former army officer and Supreme Council member Vadim Krasnoselsky has been president of Transnistria since 2016.

There is no independent media, and human and civil rights are systematically violated. Romanian written in Latin script is banned. Numerous people have been held as political prisoners since 1992, the most well-known being the group around anti-communist Moldovan activist Ilie Ilascu, who was incarcerated from 1992 to 2001. Moldovan citizens from outside Transnistria are often kidnapped under false pretenses in the "republic" and used for blackmail.

Transnistria serves primarily as a military and operational base for Russian secret services and state structures. It is also a hub for money laundering. Widespread electoral fraud via vote buying in Moldova is carried out through Russian banks there.

The region is effectively controlled by an oligarchic group led by former KGB officer Viktor Gushan, who in 1993 co-founded the Sheriff holding company, which has a monopoly in nearly all economic sectors of Transnistria. Gushan and his business partners also own an international network of offshore companies.

Transnistria is an important Russian military base with access to southwestern Ukraine and Moldova. An estimated 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed in the region. A large former Soviet weapons arsenal containing about 20,000 tons of ammunition and weapons is stored near the village of Cobasna in the north.

Until early 2025, Transnistria was financed primarily through Russian gas supplies to Moldova. Gas paid for by the Moldovan company Moldovagaz was used to generate electricity in Transnistria at the Cuciurgan power plant on the border with Ukraine, which Transnistria then sold back to Moldova. In effect, Russia and Moldova were financing the regime in Transnistria. The region is also connected to the Russian banking system. Additionally, Transnistria exports steel and metal products, textiles and agricultural goods almost exclusively to countries in the European Union. To export goods, companies must register with the customs authorities in Moldova.

Negotiations to find a solution to the Transnistria conflict have been ongoing since 1993 -- including the "5+2 format," which brings together representatives of Moldova, Transnistria, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, plus the EU and US -- but the Kremlin has prevented the region's reintegration into the rest of the country. Now that Russian gas supplies to Moldova have been suspended via a Ukrainian transit stop since 2025, the territory's most important source of financing has been lost, leading to speculation about a possible collapse of the regime. However, the government of Moldova has no interest in escalation and would not have the military capabilities to enforce such a transition.

Breakaway Transnistria is Russia's stronghold in Moldova