The (lukewarm) Ukrainian support for Transnistrian separatism in 1992 and my commentary
Ukraine has changed a lot for the better since 1992, yet the historical record should neither be forgotten, nor be confused with the present. As one may see below, the Ukrainian UNA-UNSO fought on the side of the Transnistrian separatists in the Transnistrian war. Kyiv sent messages that it would be OK for the Transnistrian "president" Igor Smirnov to come to Kyiv, where he wanted to negotiate Transnistria's union with Ukraine as an autonomous area like ... Crimea. He was arrested by a Moldovan special operation. It is also a well-known thing that the Cossacks from Russia were allowed by the Ukrainian authorities to pass through Ukrainian territories to get to Transnistria. The (Ukrainian nationalist) UNA-UNSO sent volunteers to help Transnistria's forces.
At that time, in 1992, I was often going to church to a bilingual (Ukrainian and English) Ukrainian Orthodox church in northern New Jersey, with the Ukrainian and American flags flying in front of the church. It was the closest Orthodox church to where I lived. At that time, I felt that 80% of the parishioners were on Transnistria's side. In retrospect, I think that only 40% were. Only 20% were on Moldova's side. What is interesting is that the ethnic Ukrainians originating from northern Bukovina and northern Bessarabia were against the support for the Transnistrian separatists. So were the Transcarpathian Ukrainians. The former groups were afraid that Romania would not recognize Ukraine's border because of this. For a while, this was true, but Romania eventually did so in 1997. The Transcarpathian Ukrainians and one Ukrainian from Romanian Maramures, and a family from the Hutsul area in southern Bukovina, in Romania remembered and were grateful that Romania had no territorial claims against Avgustyn Voloshyn's autonomous and independent Trannscarpathia in 1938-1939, and supported it militarily against Hungary. The one person of southern Bessarabian origin was pro-Transnistrian independence, and was claiming that the Ukrainian support for Transnistria was because Romania had territorial claims against Ukraine. He was also saying that if Transnistria would return as a part of Moldova, there would be a transition from the Old Calendar to the New Calendar in terms of religious holidays, which the Transnistrian Ukrainians did not like during the period when Transnistria was under Romanian administration in 1941-1944. Somebody with ancestors from around Kyiv was saying that if Ukraine would annex Transnistria, then there would be no Russian troops on Moldova's border, and that Moldova could unite with Romania. He had a point. Yet at that time, I was not in favor of Moldova's union with Romania and I wanted Transnistria to return to Moldova. (Now, I realize that this won't happen.)
Ukraine and Ukrainians could have behaved better in 1992, and they could have behaved worse. Russia still had troops in Ukraine until around the fall of 1993 (I am excluding Crimea, where the Russian fleet stayed on). Yet there was also an appetite for Transnistria, just as some in Romania had an appetite for the Ukrainian areas that used to be Romania. In all honesty, in the mid-90's, about 55% of those in a Romanian Orthodox church where I sometimes went had territorial claims against Ukraine (now the percentage would be 15-20%). Both groups were wrong.
Soon after the Transnistria war, I stopped going to that Ukrainian church. So did a family of ethnic Ukrainians from Romania, from the Hutsul area of southern Bukovina, whom I later saw in a Romanian church, and who now identified as Hutsuls rather than as Ukrainians. An employee of the Ukrainian mission to the UN or consulate in New York City once went to church in the Ukrainian church mentioned above, and indicated his sympathy toward Transnistrian independence. I disagreed with him, and so did the Hutsul family. They were told in Ukrainian that they were bad Ukrainians and not Ukrainian enough. They were more fully accepted in a Romanian Orthodox Church, though they might not have liked it when they were included in the "we the Romanians" ("noi, romanii") category. Yet, by being in favor of Moldova's union with Romania, they did fit in (about 80% of the parishioners were for that).
One has to object to those civic Moldovanists who also insist that they are ethnic Moldovans rather than ethnic Romanians like Moldova's foreign minister Mihai Popsoi (whom Maia Sandu doesn't quite like, but who was imposed by Deutschland uber alles) who prefer more Ukrainian rather than more Romanian influence in Moldova and claim to believe that the ancestors of the Moldovans in all the old principality of Moldova were ... proto-Ukrainians. They also prefer the Russian Orthodox Church (guilty of defending Russian aggression) in Moldova over the Romanian Orthodox Church in Moldova. (As an ethnic Romanian, I don't like that at all. One could object in the name of post-modernism to the statement that Moldovans are ethnic Romanians, but the statement is still factually true if one thinks in a modernist way. And too many supposed post-modernists are defenders of the somewhat pre-modern Russian Orthodox Church.) Yet their selective use of history (which they claim is patriotic, but is not), including how they are hiding the facts described above regarding the Ukrainian support for Transnistria in 1992, gives their views a science fiction quality. I think that his predecessor as Moldovan foreign minister, who didn't want more Ukrainian influence in Moldova and wanted a better status for the Moldovans/Romanians in Ukraine, Nicu Popescu, was better. My goal is not to attack Zelenskyy, who is not among those who supported Transnistria, and who is fighting against the influence of a big, but fictional, brother (Russia), or present-day Ukraine, but those in Moldova who embrace the influence of a big fictional brother (whether Russia or Ukraine, or who alternate between the two).
All the best,
Ionas Aurelian Rus
During the Transnistrian War, members of UNA-UNSO fought alongside Transnistrian separatists against Moldovan government forces, ostensibly to protect the large ethnic minority in Transnistria. The inappropriate motive for helping the largely pro-Russian region was the "struggle of the Slavs against Romanian aggression". After the war, 50 members of UNSO were awarded the PMR medal "Defender of Transnistria"....
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Ukraine's participation
On August 28, 1991, the leader of the self-proclaimed Transnistrian Moldavian Republic, Igor Smirnov, arrived in Kyiv to negotiate the accession of Transnistria to Ukraine. However, the negotiations did not take place, as on August 29, Moldovan police arrested Smirnov, after which he was taken to a Chisinau prison (he was released on October 1 of the same year).
The lack of reaction from official Kyiv prompted the UNSO to introduce a Ukrainian military presence in the region. This idea apparently originated among elderly Lviv nationalists, following the example of the OUN's sending of marching groups to Transcarpathia in 1939, when Carpathian Ukraine was threatened by the Hungarian army.
In March 1992, when the conflict took on a military character, a group of Rivne UNSO members appeared in the PMR to establish contacts with local Ukrainian organizations, whose leaders were ready to place a large number of UNSO members on their territory.
On April 2, members of the UNSO directly entered the battle. These were two swarms (departments), the commanders of which were Mykola Karpiuk and Yuriy Tyma . The fighting at that time took place in the south of the PMR ( Slobodez'skyi district ) and near Dubossary (on the Dorotske ?- Koshnytsia line ). The UNSO members were allocated positions near the village of Koshnytsia to protect the highway that ran through the entire territory of the PMR from south to north. The appearance of Ukrainian citizens among the defenders of Transnistria caused an uproar among the indigenous Ukrainians. Ukrainian Orthodox churches began to appear in Transnistria, in which priests of the Kyiv Patriarchate officiated. The first such church (restored) appeared in the village of Rashkov, where since mid-April 1992 the UNSO training center was located in the premises of a comprehensive school. Father Volodymyr, Doctor of Philosophy, became the rector of the church. Later, he headed the newly formed Transnistrian eparchy of the UOC-KP.
Memories of the then head of UNA–UNSO, Yuriy Shukhevych :
"We arrived in the village of Rashkiv , where the UNS barracks, headquarters, and training center were located. It was a Ukrainian village in spirit: there is a church in it where Tymysh Khmelnytsky was married. The atmosphere was special: there were machine gunners everywhere, and at any moment you could come under fire. But in Rashkiv, a whole square of blue-yellow flags gathered for the meeting. This atmosphere — on the one hand, front-line, and on the other — home, Ukrainian — was remembered by many."
Articol interesant ?i informativ. Ast?zi tema Transnistriei revine ?i ar putea bascula ?nspre Occident, dac? acesta va dori-o ?? Cadoul de logodna de 30 milioane anun?at chiar azi promite o nunt? de miliarde ??