In The Media

UN Moldova resolution won’t make Russians budge: expert

by Charlie Pinkerton (feat. Andrea Charron)

iPolitics
June 26, 2018

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution Friday urging Russian troops to withdraw from the Republic of Moldova, but don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, says an expert on the UN.

Russian troops have occupied Transnistria, a self-proclaimed state in Moldova’s east, since the early 1990s. Russia maintains that it is safeguarding about 20,000 tons of munition leftover in the territory from the Second World War. It’s believed by Moldova that 1,400 Russian Special Operations Forces troops are active in the territory. Ala Beleavschi, the Moldovan ambassador to Canada, reported to the House defence committee earlier this month that Moldova has 6,500 active military members in total.

“Realistically this (UN General Assembly resolution) is not going to precipitate action,” Andrea Charron, director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba said. “Putin isn’t going to wake up tomorrow morning and say, ‘Hmm, jeez, a General Assembly resolution passed. Maybe I’ll rethink my foreign policy.’”