Oliver Boyd-Barrett: Ominous Trouble in Moldova and Transnistria
By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 9/23/25
Developments today [9/23/25] from Moldova and Transnistria as reported by Dima on the Military Summary Channel seem significant and I will briefly summarize them as he has reported them, with a view to amending, adding or correcting in the light of subsequent evolution over the hours and days ahead.
Dima starts by noting that there has been another significant Ukrainian drone attack over the past 24 hours on targets in or close to Moscow. There were many explosions, and many drones were brought down: Moscow says 70+ were destroyed.
In Kiev, Zelenskey has adopted a new bill by which he can send Ukrainian forces abroad. Specifically, the bill would allow him to send troops to Turkey and to the UK for national security purposes, to receive complex military equipment and to master its use. Additionally he has proposed sending the Ukrainian navy to Turkey and to the UK. Dima refers to the “remnants” of the Ukrainian navy. Russian naval drones have apparently chalked up significant (and grossly underreported, if true) success in attacks on Ukrainian ships in the Black Sea so that Ukraine wants to protect its remaining ships by sending them to Turkey (and the UK?) and having them sail under different flags.
If the above is true, then this strikes me as incredibly dangerous, inviting all kinds of mischevous false flag shenannigans. Dima says, more specifically, that Ukraine plans to move its fleet from the Odessa region. This manouver may also be related to developments in Moldova.
There will be elections this coming weekend in Moldova. These are structured to favor pro-European votes since there are polling booths available throughout Moldovan diasporic Europe but none available in Moldovan diasporic Russia The current Moldovan president, the highly pro-European Sandu, has said that a victory for pro-Russian forces in the coming elections would be dangerous for pro-European interests given that Moldova has been seen as a springboard for an attack by European forces against Russia in the region of Odessa, something that Sandy presumably favors. Russian intelligence has issued a statement that claims that Europe is preparing to occupy Moldova. There is already a concentration of European forces nearby in Romania.
The transfer of troops from Romania into Moldova is intended to intimidate pro-Russian Transnistria. British and other European forces are already in Odessa in preparation for this operation, timed for after the Moldovan elections on September 28. There have already been significant pro-Russian protests in Moldova that are allegedly backed by a pro-Russian exiled Moldovan oligarch, Ilan Shor and there have been multiple arrests of Russian demonstrators over the past day or so. It is rumored that Russia plans to instigate riots on Sunday in the event that the elections do not go their way (i.e. if the current President is voted back into power), presumsably in a bid to dissuade European powers from occupying the country.
A further complication is that the new president of Romania – in power only because the EU on highly dubious grounds and in collaboration with a western-shaped Romanian intelligence institution, thwarted an election that would otherwise have been won by an opponent to the war with Russia – favors the absorption of Moldova into Romania.
This may be the real reason why Zelenskiy wanted RADA’s approval for moving Ukrainian forces abroad. In the event that things do not run in European or Ukrainian favor in Moldova, Zelenskiy plans to participate in a small war designed to destabilize Transnistria. In this event, reports Dima, Russia would most likely respond with the use of Oreshnik missiles.
In conclusion, therefore, we may rightly worry that European determination to lure the Trump administration back into the “defense” of Europe, even at a time when Ukraine is on the verge of economic collapse and many if not most European economies are economically stagnant if not, as in the case of Germany, in actual recession, has reached such a paroxysm of fanaticism and recklessness that Europe would rather push the world into World War Three than …. than, what?
This – the “what” – is the great mystery, really, and I see few commentators who express who demonstrate convincing confidence that they really have the answers. Do the Europeans really believe their own paranoia about Russian intentions? If so, is this because of secret evidence unreleased to the rest of the world? I doubt it. Very much. Are European leaders brainwashed by neocon ideology and an anti-Russian propaganda campaign initiated principally by Great Britain in the nineteenth century and that has persisted through Tsarist, Bolshevik and post-Soviet periods? Perhaps, or perhaps leaders are exploiting the brainwashing of their publics in order to puruse a long-established wet-dream of destabilizing Russia, dividing it and robbing it, one way or another, of its mineral wealth. Or is it all about the “defense” industry pushing for more war, as much war as possible, so as to profit from arms sales. Or is this just a pantomime enacted for the benefict for darker, deeper and certainly much richer forces as part of some as yet articulated (for public benefit) and substantiated agenda?
The US has ignored Russian proposals to at least extend the START treaty for another year to allow time for it to be renegotiated. Putin has consequently just told his National Security Council that the START treaty is effectively dead. Scott Ritter has warned us today that this will lead inexorably to the US tripling or quadrupling the number of its warheads on its missiles, and transforming denuclearized B52s back into nuclear-delivery vehicles. This of course will prompt Russia to respond likewise.
Trump propels the proxy war with Russia over Ukraine the the war forward. He does not do this by commiting unlimited wealth, which had been the US playbook until Trump called a halt to the flow a few months ago in favor of US weapons that Europe has ordered and paid for, but he has just said he will recommence the flow of US weapons through NATO, and has told Ukraine that it can continue the war, win the war, and regain all the territory that it has lost. So, for today, Trump is encouraging Ukraine to kill many more of its young men, and calling an end to a peace process that was going absolutely nowhere, in any case – fundamentally because the West cannot bring itself to admit that Russia too has security concerns.
It would be better and safer if Trump simply abandoned Ukraine to its and to Europe’s own devices, which would be followed by a Russian victory and an end to the war on Russian terms and a possible start to talks for a new global and regional security architecture. Well, that is not going to happen, not for a while.
With the US continuing to supply weapons on its own account, the war will continue for longer; there will be many more deaths, Europe and Ukraine will together drive themselves into economic oblivion and pathetic dependence on expensive US LNG, of which the US cannot guarantee a continuing supply nor the price at which it is supplied. The pressures on Europe will further split the continent apart. China will breathe a sigh of relief because it will not be the sole or even the prime target of fruitless US obsession to sustain its own hegemony giving it more time to build up its armed and nuclear forces to quite a different level of threat, in preparation for a time, should it ever return, that the US feels ready to continue the game. Russia will continue to be a major supplier of energy to China and India and, almost certainly, and indirectly through Chinese and Indian vessels, to Europe too. In a world of artificially constricted energy supply, Russia and its allies, with the potential support of a more Russian-friendly Saudi Arabia and, of course, Iran, and of the BRICS generally will grow richer and more independent than ever of Western markets.
