New customs rules in the Transdniester region

In this post I had pointed out that Moldova and Ukraine had come to an agreement designed to control the illegal flow of goods into Ukraine from the Transdniester region. The agreement says that any such goods must have an official customs stamp from Moldova.

Moldova and Ukraine say the deal was not meant to be an economic blockage, but today, officials in Transdniester appealed to Russia for humanitarian aid.

The speaker of Transdnestr's parliament met with senior Russian MPs Monday to request humanitarian aid for the breakaway region of Moldova.

Yevgeny Shevchuk said Transdnestr had an acute demand for food, medicines, and baby food, adding that humanitarian aid would be distributed first among kindergartens, orphanages, those with low incomes, and medical institutions.

Shevchuk said Transdnestr had been forced to approach Russia after Moldova and Ukraine imposed an economic blockade against the self-proclaimed republic.

Moldova imposed new customs regulations in early March, requiring all Transdnestr goods bound for Ukraine to bear an official Moldovan stamp. The regulations were outlined in a joint communique adopted by the Moldovan and Ukrainian prime ministers on December 30, 2005, and endorsed by the Ukrainian Cabinet March 1.

Andrei Kokoshin, head of the committee for contacts with compatriots abroad at the Russian State Duma, said the lower house would approach the government shortly, proposing specific amounts of humanitarian aid to be sent to Transdnestr and ways to distribute the aid there.

Kokoshin also said the State Duma was already discussing a humanitarian aid plan, based on actual demand in the breakaway republic given the latest developments.

He could not give exact figures, but said the aid would be "considerable" and would target specific recipients.

This agreement was reached with the blessing of the EU and the US, and Russia risks fraying its relations with Europe around the edges if it continues to interfere in this unrecognized territory.

Ukrainian Transport Minister Viktor Bondar said today Kyiv was meeting international obligations by imposing the new border rules.

Also today, British Ambassador to Moldova John Beyer told President Vladimir Voronin that Britain and the EU approved of Ukraine's enforcing of customs rules.

In a recent interview with Yevgeny Shevchuk, the speaker of the parliament Transdniester, Shevchuk downplayed the smuggling aspect.

RFE/RL: The main argument of Chisinau is that Tiraspol lives from smuggling. Does Transdniester really deal with smuggling businesses?

Shevciuk: Just like in Moldova! And like in Ukraine. And I have calculated that there are more smuggling cases in Moldova itself than one can count at the Moldovan-Ukrainian border or at the Moldovan-Romanian border, in comparison with the situation at the Transdniester-Ukrainian border.

But they keep saying that we smuggle across the border and so on. But they forget the following: there is a Ukrainian border, and there is a Moldovan border --two borders. The Moldovan side is very well trained, with high-class specialists, and we trust them all. But we don’t trust the Ukrainian side. So it’s all clear, let’s invite international observers, and here they are - already on the spot.

They have concluded that in principle some irregularities exist, but as a matter of fact I have not seen any proof. They could at least show us an automatic rifle, a rocket installation -- they say we have such installations, various systems, katyushas. Well, they exist, but there is another issue [to pay attention to]: producing these at state level, selling, and manufacturing are different things. They found nothing. And we can’t do a thing about this! Can you imagine? We have invited the international community and they will work for a year and will report that Transdniester has nothing.

This worries us first of all in connection with the fact that we are being described as thieves, that we are manufacturing ammunition and weapons for some purposes, that we are making money from this. This makes us feel uncomfortable, not quite in a good mood relating to a partner who speaks so. Perhaps it has been misled by its own special services, I don’t know the causes of this allegation.

This has been part of the dispute. Some claim Moldova is exaggerating the amount of smuggling going on in order to gain some leverage over this breakaway region. However, the Wikipedia entry claims the following:

Transnistria imports many times more consumables then the rest of the country, e.g. around 6,000 times as much cigarettes in order to avoid duties and tax income. The majority of these goods are then smuggled onto the Moldovan market.

Recently, a cache of 70 surface-to-air missile launchers disappeared from a former Soviet stockpile and officials are unable to account for their whereabouts. The government of Ukraine, which had long been seen as assisting in this illegal trade, had recently taken steps to prevent smuggling along its border by opening new customs posts and forming internal anti-smuggling squads.

In 2005, a reporter of British newspaper The Sunday Times impersonating a middleman for an Islamic terrorist group obtained a deal for an Alazan rocket and a radioactive warhead for $200,000. Moldovan authorities declared that 38 such dirty bombs are found in Transnistria, of which three are in the hands of the separatists and the rest are kept by the Russian army.

Also, this:

A recent report funded by the British Department for International Development says that "Transdniester is a smuggling company masquerading as a state".

I think there is more to this dispute than what lies on the surface. Part of it has to do with Russia's ties to the region. Russian troops are still there, as they have been going back to the Soviet era. The flames of empire may still burn in the hearts of old Soviets, and Russia is not eager to completely let go of the region. There are Russian speaking people in this region, and Russia feels some patronage towards them.

There is also the lingering bad blood over Russia's use of gas as a lever against Ukraine and Europe. Russia shut off Ukraine's gas at the beginning of the year, and Moldova's as well.

Ukraine reached a complicated agreement with Gazprom and Russia, but Moldova is still negotiating with Russia. From an article just today:

Moldovan First Deputy Prime Minister Zinaida Greciani left for Moscow Monday to negotiate a new contract for gas supplies to Moldova.

The former Soviet republic's contract with Gazprom, which was signed in January, expires in April. Under the current deal, Moldova pays $110 dollars per 1,000 cu.m. of gas, 37 percent more than it paid under the previous contract that ran from 1996 to 2005. Under that deal, Moldova paid the Russian gas giant $80 per 1,000 cu.m.

Gazprom chief Aleksei Miller has indicated that he would like Moldova to pay what the rest of Europe does for Russian gas. That figure is closer to $160 per 1,000 cu.m.

Moldova had previously refused to pay that sum.

Moldova and Ukraine find a common cause in opposing Russia's desires in this Transdniester region. Ukraine in turn has some leverage over Russia as it holds the keys to the Odessa port, home to Russia' Black Sea Fleet.

Here is a good post on the issue from a Ukranian standpoint. Some of the comments there are clearly from the Transdniester side. (There are links in this post to a couple of posts, here and here, that give a Russian viewpoint.)

So, while it may seem this is a disagreement about smuggled cigarettes, it masks a larger struggle. With Russia hosting the G8 summit later this summer, it will be interesting to see where this goes, and how much the EU and the US push against Russia, especially considering they are trying to gain Russia's cooperation against Iran.