Romania would formally cede the region of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union, a stretch of land the two nations had contested and traded since 1812. For the duration of the war, Romania would bear the cost of hosting the Soviet Red Army on its soil—over a half-million soldiers at the time—as well as the burden of putting some 200,000 of its own soldiers into the field under Soviet command. Most punishing of all was the war reparations bill: $300 million, to be paid in goods and services to Moscow over the next six years, but enough to keep the impoverished nation in a state of indentured servitude
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