Europe | Too thin to survive?

The tiny statelet of Transnistria is squeezed on all sides

But so far Russia has been unable to gobble it up

 A bust of Lenin in front of the House of Soviets building in Tiraspol
Photograph: Getty Images
|Tiraspol

“Everyone is welcome, except journalists,” announces the guide as her group have their passports checked on entering Transnistria, a diminutive pro-Russian breakaway enclave that belongs in international law to Moldova. Russian soldiers stand on one side of the road, Moldovans on the other. It is peaceful enough. But ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Transnistrians’ fears that their statelet might become a new front in that war have been very real.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Too thin to survive?”

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