🇲🇩❌🇲🇩🇷🇺🇷🇺 On the 2nd of March 1992, 32 years ago, Moldovan president, Mircea Snegur, authorised a military intervention to recapture the land across the Dneister seized by pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian separatists in what would become known as the Transnistrian War.
Although the initial spats of violence began as early as November 1990 in the region of Dubăsari/Dubbosary, the conflict stood frozen for over one and a half years until Moldova became recognised as UN member state. During this time, between November 1990 and March 1992, Chișinău as well as Tiraspol, scrambled to organise their armed forces in preparation for the future showdown.
Yet the time was not enough for Moldova as their army was more comparable to a militia and as such failed to retake control over the city of Dubăsari which was one of the few bastions of pro-Romanian feelings on the left bank of the Dneister. In the meantime, the separatist militia with aid from Russia who ceded most of the equipment and vehicles of the 14th Army to Tiraspol as well as Don, Kuban, Orenburg and UNA-UNSO volunteers assaulted the city of Tighina on the right-bank of the Dneister renaming it as ”Bendery”.
Moldova lost 279 men meanwhile the Transnistrian side with the Russian and Ukrainian volunteers accounted to, lost upwards of 1000 men.
One notable moment from the war was during the last days of the war in June 1992 when the separatists, flying Russian flags, assaulted with tanks and IFVs the city of Tighina. The then Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was sending ultimatum after ultimatum to Mircea Snegur telling him to withdraw or Yeltsin will be "forced" to attack... after the attack began.
Between June 19th and June 22nd 1992, the Russians bombed the city of Tighina using cruise missiles, artillery and GRAD MRLS destroying a number of apartment buildings, a kindergarten in Varnița, local factories, communication and power lines. Mind you, the city was inhabited. Half of the civilian casualties happened in Tighina.
@Wallachian_Gazette