In this episode, we’ll talk straight and to the point about the reasons and premises of military conflicts in Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. What roles do ethnicity, language, religion and economy play and what are Russia’s interests in each and every one of them? 

Did you know that member of UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Assembly — Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense) from Rivne region fought in Transnistria on the side of separatists? The organization stated that they were there protecting Ukrainians and the rights of the locals to self-determination. Does this sound familiar? 

Before 2014 Ukrainian government officials were quite liberal with the interpretation of the concepts of “territorial integrity” and “state sovereignty”. They were surprisingly flexible with their core principles in many aspects: from political statements and economic ties to giving out passports, as an example. Does this remind you of anything? 

A surprising fact: current head of the unrecognized Transnistria republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky (who previously served as the Minister of Interior) has a Ukrainian citizenship. And he had no problems crossing the nonexistent border between Transnistria and Ukraine hundreds of times while he was on the wanted list in Moldova and banned in the EU.  

These facts are unpopular with our people. Humans are innately attracted to simplicity — black and white stories with a clear-cut division into good and bad guys. And of course, we want to be among the good ones, instead of being frustrated by the fact that our government used the same — well, maybe not illegal, but obviously ethically ambiguous — tricks against our neighbor in the same situation. 

And there is a widely used thesis that the whole world should have rallied behind Ukraine and helped us — as we are the last stronghold of civilization on the destructive path of barbaric Russia. What can be more important than this battle between good and evil that’s happening right here and right now? 

A counter question: what do you know about modern genocides and apartheid that are also happening here and now, — for example, the position of Uyghurs in China or the Israel’s politics concerning Palestine? Or still ongoing war of Kurds against the Islamic State? Or — we don’t have to reach far — how many protestors have died in Kazakhstan last month or asylum seekers on the Belarus-Poland border this winter? How did these horrible things become possible at all? 

Our focus on ourselves and the need for attention and support are understandable: self comes first. But this unwillingness to look from above at the world map and find our place in the international context is only hurting us. Because history repeats itself and all events have quite pragmatic reasons and logical consequences. So the more we see and understand, engage critically, find parallels and distinguish the motives — the more appropriate and precise our reaction will be to, at the first glance unexpected, threats and attacks. 

Ukraine isn’t unique in its tragedy. And the plethora of our problems caused by war are well-known to other countries in the region. Moldova has Transnistria, Georgia — Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. Some wounds are still fresh. Others are going on for more than 30 years now, and a few can say why the war has started and why it’s still going. Some aspects of their experience we should adopt, others we should analyze, come to a conclusion and do the opposite. 

Questions of policymaking and war strategy I’ll leave to so inclined analysts and commentators. I’m a reporter, so I’ll focus on telling personal stories of people caught up in the middle of the war. Stories about men and women who have lost life or freedom because of who they are and what they think. About the designated enemies of the state who leave home every morning, not sure if they’ll come back in the evening. About kids who learned how to shelter from shelling before they learned to read and write. 

I’m Alona Savchuk and this is Mud and blood podcast. 

As much as I would like to avoid the generalization, political analysis of pre-conditions and pointing fingers with the benefit of hindsight, it’s impossible to talk about how people live in active war zones without explaining why it began and what basically happened there. 

So after all, we’ll talk about history and politics in this episode. But without any claim to the full comprehensiveness. On the contrary, I would like to go off the beaten path and highlight the ambiguous moments in history and unpopular here aspects of the relationship between the sides of conflict. 

When we talk about the conflicts in the Eastern Europe and South Caucasus, one way or another at one point we inevitably have to bring up the Soviet Union or Russia. Despite the fact that the USSR fell apart relatively peacefully and quietly, in some places it was hard to draw the borders of new countries. Different ethnicities, speaking different languages, religion, orientation of local political or economic elites towards West or East — these were the key differences between the sides of future conflicts. 

Though, theoretically, up until some moment all these things could have been solved peacefully if only a) the intention was to de-escalate and not to knock your opponent out, b) there wasn’t a powerful and deeply involved in the conflict neighbor, for which this is a perfect opportunity to solve its own geopolitical objectives. 

Russia is involved one way or another in each of the armed conflicts we’ll talk about: if it isn’t a case of direct aggression, as is with Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, then it’s indirect support of one of the sides, e.g. Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Standard Russian scheme includes: 1) previous long-term support of pro-Russian sentiments among the locals, 2) economic ties of the local businesses to the Russian markets in particular, 3) close friendship with local political elites that rose from business or law-enforcement. 

And as soon as the neighboring country tries to leave the Russian orbit or simply starts to talk about the Euro-Atlantic course — there is flare-up in the conflict region. Russian government will use any methods to keep the neighbors from growing closer with political and military structures of the West. 

To explain its involvement in the other countries’ conflicts, Russia has been using the same points for decades: 1) we come to help only when we are asked; 2) we protect either Russian-speaking citizens or the right of locals to self-determination or both. 

Because, as Russian president Vladimir Putin said: “You understand, everyone has their own truth”. 

After the active phase of the conflict, Russia does everything to secure its status as the peacemaker and mediator between the official government and people who de facto hold power locally. It helps them to do all the decision-making while avoiding any responsibility and accountability. 

— Your positions were shelled during the cease-fire? Well, what can we do? We are mere mediators, here is your opponent, address all your concerns to them. 

Often you hear that such a political situation in the region is Putin’s doing. And even though it became more active starting in the 2000s when he became the president, the Russian government used the same methods long before him, and in other regions. 

This spring will mark 30 years since the conflict in Transnistria. The worst phase was rocket strikes and city fights in the cities of Bender and Dubasari. There is no precise, unbiased count of killed and injured. The topic is absolutely a target of propaganda. The most common estimate we can use as a benchmark is 1000 killed (civilians and military personnel), 4500 injured and 80 000 refugees. 

It all began in 1989, when the Soviet Union fell, — with a language question. During the revision, Moldova passed the law about language. Moldovan became the only official language, while Russian language was granted special status. In Transnistria, the law was regarded as discriminatory and a sign of unification with Romania. 

It’s important to understand that the ethnic makeup of Transnistria was different from the rest of Moldova. There lived in more or less equal parts Moldovans, Russians and Ukrainians. Local party elites related way more to the Soviet center than to Romania and the West. 

And the more people came to anti-Soviet and anti-Russian protests in Chisinau, the louder calls for Latinization of the language and even joining Romania became — the further Transnistria went the opposite way. 

They need our industrial complex to join Romania with it. Because Romanians probably don’t need them without our industrial complex. It produces 35% of all income in Moldova — Transnistria 

We just want to live and work in peace. I don’t need this rifle to walk around with it all the time. I want to work as usual, peacefully, but I want to know that I’m living on my land, that I’m not an invader. I was born here, my children were born here, but I’m apparently an invader, a mankurt and so on. 

Long story short, next came the referendum and the declaration of independence of Transnistria. 

The full-scale military confrontation in the region broke out in the spring of `92, and the key role in this brutal, although short, war was played by the 14th Guards Army of the Soviet Union based in Transnistria region. 

We have to talk about it in a bit more detail. After the Soviet Union fell apart, the Guards Army officially stated that it would like to join Russian Armed Forces, but in practice it was separated from Russia by Ukraine. In `91 and `92, the 14th didn’t draft any recruits from Russia, so instead local guys from Transnistria were drafted.

Up until a certain moment, the military kept neutrality during the conflicts between Moldovan and Transnistrian law enforcement that flared up here and there from `90. Everything went south in June of `92. When Russian Major-General Alexander Lebed secretly arrived in Tiraspol (capital of the unrecognized republic). He de facto took charge of the 14th Guards Army. It was the moment when Russia officially got involved in the armed conflict in Transnistria on the side of separatists. 

There in Tiraspol, Lebed held a press conference, and he didn’t mince words:

“Esteemed correspondents, comrades, I gathered you all today to make a statement. 

What’s happening here is a genocide of their own people”.

The Russian army was the most powerful, military-wise, side of the conflict. And when they started firing on the positions of Moldovan military and law enforcement, later suffered sizable losses. Moldova had no other choice but to negotiate. 

The negotiations started in the beginning of July and in August the peace treaty was signed by presidents of Moldova and Russia Mircea Snegur and Boris Yeltsin with participation of Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov. The treaty proclaimed that Russian peacemakers stay in Transnistria. Ever since then, the conflict has become frozen. 

Moldova recognized the separatists as a side of negotiations and Russia as a mediator, and not an aggressor country — which became a major problem down the line. 

For years, everyone who felt like it proposed their plans for resolution of the conflict from time to time, but the attempts were half-hearted and first and foremost pushing one’s agenda. 

Even Viktor Yushchenko tried to get involved. He had “Seven steps on the way to democracy”. And those steps were quite dubious. For example, he proposed that Moldova agrees to hold elections to the Supreme Council of Transnistria under international monitoring, which would de facto mean legalization of the republic. 

Maybe, double standards don’t seem like such a bad idea until you feel their consequences the hard way. The same can be said about ‘gray schemes’ of contraband in Transnistria which involve Ukrainian business, we’ll talk more about it in later episodes of the podcast. 

One more curious fact about Transnistria. Russia didn’t even recognize the republic, not to mention the integration, which was once seen as a done deal by Transnistrians. After Abkhazia and especially Crimea, locals are quite mad at Russia because of it. Although if you think about it: 1) it’s logical that the annexation isn’t possible because at very least Russia and Transnistrian don’t share a border; 2) for Moscow Transnistria is first and foremost a leverage to control Moldova. 

Ideally, Russia would like for Moldova to reintegrate Transnistria while granting it far-reaching autonomy. Then, the internal turmoil would stop Moldova from integrating into the EU, and even if it wouldn’t bring Moldova back to Russia’s zone of influence it would guarantee the neutrality of the country. 

“Maia Sandu, who were elected, and I wish her great success” — “between Transnistria and the rest of Moldova”. 

When we talk about Abkhazia and South Ossetia, our political experts and analysts usually focus on the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 — as if everything that happened before isn’t that important. It’s 100% true that without Russia’s involvement, the map of Georgia would look different today. But despite that, an unambiguous and matter-of-fact narrative where Georgia is a victim, people of Abkhazia and Ossetia ore mindless pawns, and Russia is a root of all evil, at the very least causes a cognitive dissonance. 

Where did the centuries of antagonistic and complicated relationships before Putin went? 

As an example, how do we evaluate the “georgification” politics in Abkhazia and South Ossetia:

1. when Georgian language was compulsory in schools, Abkhaz language wasn’t taught in Abkhazia;
2. when local toponyms and surnames were changed to sound more Georgian — see Sukhum-Sukhumi and Tskhinval-Tskhinvali that are a matter of principle for both sides;
3. and the main thing — when the ethnic makeup of the region was changed when Georgians were moved into the desolate after the deportations Greek villages and Abkhaz settlements. To paint a clear picture: in the beginning of the 90s, Abkhazians made up only 17% of population of Abkhazia. 

The Soviet Union didn’t yet exist when Abkhazians and Ossetians were demanding more autonomy and even independence. We can bring up Ossetian armed insurgence of 1918-20 that ended with brutal suppression, both military and civilians coming under the fire and thousands of refugees. Abkhazia demanded independence for Georgia in `57, `67 and the biggest protests were in `78. 

While the Soviet Union was falling apart, the relations between the center and the regions of Georgia were getting worse by the minute. Tbilisi more and more aggressively talked about protecting the national interests, adding that they are willing to do whatever it takes. Abkhazia and South Ossetia on the contrary clung to the Soviet Union in hopes to gain more autonomy and maybe even independence as a Soviet Republic. 

A good example of this situation is historically so called “peaceful” march to Tskhinvali (capital of autonomous oblast of South Ossetia) in November of `89, before the war. It was organized and headed by Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Quite an interesting character in Georgian history and politics. Writer, literary scholar, Doctor of Philology, dissident, founder and member of the Georgian Helsinki Group, he was even nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. One year after the march Gamsakhurdia became the head of the Georgian Parliament and almost immediately he was elected to be the first President of Georgia, and some six months later he had to flee the country because of the coup d’état, found refuge in Chechnya, came back, got involved in the civil war, lost it and died under mysterious circumstances on the New Year eve of 1994 — hiding from government militia in a country cottage with a small group of followers, he either committed suicide or was murdered. 

Now then, participants of the march planned to hold a rally for the unity of Georgia, counting thousands, in the heart of South Ossetia which had just proclaimed autonomy. But locals blocked the road leading into Tskhinvali. In response, protesters besieged the city and held it for several months. It didn’t go without the fire, there were killed and injured and battered on both sides. 

Here what chronicles have to say about it:

However, the results didn’t force the sides to revise their methods and, on the contrary, angered them even more. 

The war in South Ossetia lasted a year and a half from January 1991 to June of `92, straight after that a year-long war in Abkhazia from August `92 to September `93. Everything was put to use: tanks, artillery, aviation. On the Georgian side fought National Guard, paramilitary formations and international fighters. Interestingly, Ukrainians from UNA-UNSO also made an appearance in Abkhazia, this time on the side of official government. On the opposite side, besides non-Georgian locals, definitely fought Russian Cossacks and individual foreign fighters. The role of Russian military still isn’t comprehensively understood. Officially, Russia supported the Georgian government, even though many Russians with military experience fought for the other side. 

The civilians suffered greatly during both wars, and both sides were responsible for war crimes: extrajudicial executions, tortures and rapes, looting, destruction of cultural landmarks. Both sides made declarations about ethnic cleansing — and we talk about thousands of victims, including women and children. I won’t recap the accounts in detail, here are two episodes that illustrate the situation well and are easy to google: mass killings of Georgians in the Kamani village in July of `93, and the shooting of Ossetian refugees on the road through Zar village in May of `92. 

Bedside great number of killed and injured as a result of both wars, hundreds of thousands Georgians and Ossetians left their homes. Ones fled from the prosecution to the inner regions of Georgia, others sought refuge in North Ossetia. 

The sides negotiated the cease-fire, but still some armed conflicts flared up from time to time. In Abkhazia, for example, in `98 Georgian guerilla fighters from the paramilitary “White Legion” attacked law enforcement in Gali district. As the result, Abkhazian regular army started the counter-attack. In a few days estimated dozens to hundreds of people have died, once again each of the sides claims the bigger losses. All the while, 30-40 thousand Georgians had to flee the prosecution in Abkhazia. 

The breaking point was the direct military involvement of Russia in 2008. In the Russo-Georgian war, the central question is who started it, and the truth is lost in the stream of dubious claims. 

So, what is the deal with that? Georgia insists that in the morning on the 7th of August Russian regular army, not the peacemakers, made an incursion into Georgian territory through the Roki Tunnel. Therefore, everything that Georgia done after counts as self-defense. 

Then president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said this about the situation: Russia insists that the regular army crossed the border on the 8th of August, after the Georgian military shelled Tskhinvali previous night and then began a storm on the city. Their usual reasoning, to protect their peacemakers and citizens, after they generously gave out Russian passports to Ossetians in Georgia. Their actions the Russian government still stubbornly describes as “peace enforcement in Georgia”.

Guardian’s correspondent Jonathan Steele had an interesting conversation with then Prime Minister, Volodymyr Putin, during a meeting of Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi in 2008. 

“I know that you were angered” — “in the long run, amoral politics always lose”

EU Independent Fact Finding Mission Report of the war in South Caucasus came to the conclusion that Georgia started military actions, but Russia had provoked the conflict and is equally responsible for it. 

The war lasted only 5 days. Russians not only defended Tskhinvali, but also went beyond the conflict region and started advancing towards the capital. The panic rose in Tbilisi. Saakashvili signed the unilateral ceasefire agreement, that was proposed to him by France on the behalf of EU, so called “Sarkozy plan”.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president at the time, also signed it, although later in Moscow. 

To sum it up. Georgia insists that Russia is an occupant county and has cut all diplomatic ties. Abkhazians and Ossetians insists on their agency and see Russia as a guarantor of security. Russia recognized independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and became the only connection to the outside world for them. The absolute majority of people in the region have Russian passports, Russian ruble is an official currency, economy is in shambles, education and healthcare on the decline, and in practice Russia is funding both regions. The contact between Georgia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia became almost non-existent, both on the official and everyday levels. The polarization and unease between the people only grows as the years go by. 

People know a little more about the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. At least because the latest round of fighting finished only a year ago. 

To understand the turmoil in the region we need to make sense, at least a little, of it’s complicated and bloody history. We don’t talk about Soviet times, no, we’ll have to start with Armenian-Tatar massacre of 1905-06 and the war of 1918-20. Just by looking at the name, we can see how brutal the ethnic conflict was. 

To simplify as much as we can, the key problem is that the region where lived absolute majority of Armenians (94%) was left under the control of Azerbaijan by the third party (Central Committee of Politburo), despite the appeals and protests of locals. Another ethnicity, language and religion and dozens of pre-existing armed conflicts — no one expected this decision to bring peace and quiet. 

The question of joining Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia was up in the air during the entire Soviet period. Several times Erevan has officially brought it up to Moscow but didn’t receive the support of the Soviet center. Any disconnect people of Nagorno-Karabakh had with economy, social services and even ecology, in the end always boiled down to the question of territorial affiliation. 

The first Karabakh war in 88-94 reached far beyond the borders of the region. The dreadful pogrom against Armenians in the city of Sumgait, Azerbaijan, became the turning point in this story. For three days in February of `88, Azerbaijani, in groups of few dozens, tracked down and killed Armenians, looted and burned homes, stores and cars. Several blocks of the city became an active war zone. There are no precise numbers of killed in pogroms because they weren’t investigated in a timely manner. Figures vary from a few dozens to several hundreds murdered and hundreds more injured. 

After Sumgait, Azerbaijani were driven out of Armenia and Armenians from Azerbaijan. The stream of refugees from both sides went on for over a year. After that it only escalated: continuous confrontations, mutual economic and transit blockades of particular regions, legal war, when Karabakh proclaimed independence and Azerbaijan annulled its autonomy — although neither of the documents had any real consequences. 

In January of `90, Armenian and Azerbaijani military opened fire on the positions on both sides of the border — that was the breaking point. It was a particularly dirty war, with ethnic cleansing, shelling of civilians, looting and arson, kidnappings, cruel treatment and extrajudicial executions of prisoners of war. 

Besides Armenians and Azerbaijanis, one way or another — as a part of paramilitary formations or individually — Kurds, South Ossetians, Russian Cossacks, Ukrainians, Turks, Chechens and Afghans all fought in the war. 

As the result, Nagorno-Karabakh became de facto independent, while de jure remaining a part of Azerbaijan. Not a single county has recognized the republic’s independence, not even Armenia. Still, it didn’t get in the way of Armenia supporting Nagorno-Karabakh and providing military aid. There were no negotiations with Nagorno-Karabakh because Azerbaijan didn’t recognize it as the side of the conflict.  

This was the state of affairs in the region until the second great Karabakh war. In 25 years, sides of the conflict multiple times fired on each other’s positions on the border and even further, but the status quo remained.

The conflict picked up momentum starting in summer of 2020 and by the end of September it turned into the full-scale war with tanks, heavy artillery, combat drones, and even cluster bombings, banned in the majority of the countries, but not in Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

Here is what international human rights groups Human Rights First and Amnesty International have to say about it: Armenian military has used unprecise tactical ballistic missiles, unguided multiple rocket launchers (MRLs) and artillery. Army of Azerbaijan has also used unguided artillery and MRLs. Both governments have denied the use of indiscriminate shellings of densely populated regions and use of cluster ammunition — despite the clear evidence of the contrary. 

Amnesty International report “In the line of fire: civilian casualties from unlawful strikes in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh”. The investigation was conducted on the territories of both sides of the war and report goes in depth on 17 shellings and airstrikes carried out by Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that lead to civilian casualties.

Alona: Turkey has openly supported Azerbaijan — politically and with ammunition. Armenia, as one would expect, was on the side of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia as the most powerful force in the Caucasus stated that it strives to the peaceful resolution of the conflict, — after all, the frozen conflict still works in their favor. But the more Turkey pressed on their side, the more Russia pushed back.

The military operation went on for only 44 days, but it has radically changed the power balance in the region. Azerbaijan took control of a good chunk of Karabakh, including Shusha — it’s second-biggest city. For Azerbaijan, it’s a definitive victory. Armenia got a wave of refugees and a political crisis in the country. Russia and Turkey served their interests by stationing their peacemakers in the region.

Alona: What would I like to highlight in these stories? I think we have a real privilege of not having to be the passionate supporters of either of the sides’ narratives. Lucky for us, we aren’t Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and we don’t have to support our international partners, no questions asked. We can allow ourselves not to know for sure who’s a good guy and who’s a bad one. We have to doubt, ask questions and dig deeper. 

In the next episode we’ll talk about hate speech: how it helps to push people to armed conflict and how it fuels it in the process. 

This is Blood and mud podcast, and it’s author Alona Savchuk. The podcast is created by open podcast studio IZONE Media with support of Civil Society Cooperation program of German Foreign Office together with European University Viadrina and IZOLATSIA foundation.