A mini-Russia gets squeezed by war - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : It does all of this thanks to billions of dollars in subsidies from its benefactors in Moscow, which in return gets a strategic enclave at the edge of the European Union, where it bases at least 1,500 troops.
48% : Russia subsidizes this because Transnistria serves as a powerful geopolitical lever, especially on Moldova, which wants to join the European Union but is much less attractive with Russian troops on its soil, among other issues.
39% : Although Western officials have said Russia lacks the military ability to do that anytime soon, it immediately raised the specter of the war spilling closer to the European Union.
38% : Transnistria's elites had been deftly playing this territory's unusual status, getting cheap gas from Russia to power their factories, smuggling goods out of Ukraine with the help of Ukrainian criminal networks, and using Moldovan customs channels to export goods legally to the European Union.

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