{UAH} Another breakaway region urges Putin - to make her country his next conquest
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'The Russian world is uniting': Model minister of breakaway region urges Putin to make her country his next conquest in wake of Crimea takeover to alarm of Nato
- Nina Shtanski said: 'The people's wish for unity cannot be stopped'
- She is foreign minister of Russian-speaking region Transdniestria
- Shtanski is calling for a similar takeover of her breakaway republic
By Will Stewart
PUBLISHED: 23:28 GMT, 23 March 2014 | UPDATED: 02:36 GMT, 24 March 2014
Inflammatory language: Nina Shtanski, foreign minister of Transdniestria
The glamorous foreign minister of a breakaway region of Moldova is calling on Vladimir Putin to make her country his next conquest in eastern Europe.
Few may have heard of Transdniestria, the unofficial and fictitious-sounding statelet whose head of international relations is 36-year-old Nina Shtanski.
However, senior Western figures are alarmed that following the annexation of Crimea it is step two in a Kremlin masterplan to redraw the frontiers of Europe.
This top diplomat in staunchly pro-Russian Transdniestria, who has a penchant for revealing black dresses, is gushing in her praise of Putin's takeover of the Black Sea peninsula.
She openly invites him to make the same move in her landlocked territory of 509,000 people, wedged between strife-torn Ukraine and Moldova.
'We are pleased to say that the outcome of the Crimean referendum almost fully coincides with the results of the Transdniestrian referendum of 17 September 2006, when over 97 per cent of voters chose independence and the prospect of voluntary unification with Russia,' she said in a statement.
'The obvious match of the will expressed by people in Crimea and Transdniestria demonstrates that the Russian World is uniting and the people's wish for unity cannot be stopped.'
Russian troops are assembling on Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia. An annexation of Transdniestria would be a significant expansion of Russian territory.
A Russian force of 1,300 troops - currently on high alert - is already on the ground as 'peacekeepers' in the self-declared state - which boasts the hammer and sickle on its mainly red flag.
Last week there were reports of plain-clothed Russian FSB secret services agents flooding into breakaway territory.
Nina Shtanski, whose striking looks have been compared to a fashion model
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs bills making Crimea part of Russia in the Kremlin in Moscow
Under international law, the unofficial country is part of Romanian-speaking Moldova, but after a war as the USSR broke up, Ms Shtanski and the local population have never accepted rule by Moldova.
They are now bent on being formally integrated as a region of the Kremlin, which has long subsidised this outpost.
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The fear for Western military planners is that after taking Transdniestria, Putin could then seize an arc from there to Crimea, sealing off the southern Black Sea regions of Ukraine.
In the process, he would grab another old Russian jewel, the port city of Odessa, and cripple Kiev's economy.
The 36-year-old mother of one said: 'The Russian World is uniting and the people's wish for unity cannot be stopped'
Nina Shtanski's inflammatory call, combined with more pro-Russian protests in Ukrainian cities, provoked fresh fears that Putin plans to seize more slices of eastern Europe following his annexation of Crimea
'Unity and integration, as shown by today's realities, are not always associated with geography,' explained mother-of-one Ms Shtanski in the district's capital Tiraspol.
'We are a striking confirmation of this fact. We consider ourselves part of the Russian world. We do not separate ourselves from the Russians and Russian civilization.
'We consider ourselves part of Russia, and not without reason. This has legal and historical background.'
Transdniestria was originally seized by Russia in 1792 under Catherine the Great but is today a Soviet timewarp with Lenin statues and military checkpoints.
Like many others, Ms Shtanski cannot use her Transdniestrian passport to travel and instead relies on her Russian citizenship, for example when travelling to Moscow to complete her doctorate in international relations.
Nina Shtanski is the foreign minister of Transdniestria, a mainly Russian-speaking region
Leading U.S. voices including former Republican presidential candidate John McCain and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have warned about the risk to Western interests in a Putin takeover.
'Now that we've had a crash course on Crimea, read ahead about Transdniestria, a likely target for Putin's next move,' warned Strobe Talbott, a former U.S. diplomat who is president of the Brookings Institution.
In Moscow, powerful deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin - hit last week by Western sanctions - has been put in charge of Russia's response on Transdniestria amid complaints from locals that they are being blockaded by both Ukraine and Moldova
The local pleas could become a pretext for Moscow's intervention fronted - Crimean-style - by local self-defence squads
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2587559/Nato-alarm-woman-minister-urges-Putin-invade-country-Military-commander-speaks-concerns-threat-breakaway-region-near-Moldovan-border.html#ixzz2wsNCZboZ
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