It is one of the largest and perhaps least known remnants of the Cold War, but three decades later it still raises alarms and raises concerns.
In Transnistria, a territory that at the beginning of the decade of 1990 became autonomous from Moldova although it has not achieved international recognition, there is the largest arsenal from the Cold War: a tank with some 19. 000 tons of weapons and ammunition.
Although according to its critics an explosion in this place could generate a detonation equivalent to that of the Hiroshima bomb, other experts point out that this is not possible, and that it involves old weapons and disused.
The powder magazine is located in the small town of Kolbasna , located about two kilometers s of the border with Ukraine, sheltered by about 1. 500 Russian soldiers .
Trading attempts made during the The last two decades have not been able to conclude an agreement for the destruction and / or the definitive transfer of these weapons and ammunition as desired by the Moldovan authorities.
But how, in the first place, is it established such an arsenal in this remote corner of Eastern Europe?
Soviet heritage
The Kolbasna Arms Depot was erected in the decade of 1940, when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union.
Then was a strategic arsenal belonging to the 14 mo Army s Soviet , deployed in the Western Military District of the USSR.
With the end of the Cold War it became the place where the weapons brought with them by the Soviet forces when they withdrew from East Germany, Czechoslovakia and other countries of the former communist bloc.
Mid from 1990, while in Moldova a Romanian-speaking nationalist majority fed the desire for separation from the USSR, the Russian-speaking population of the Transnistrian region proclaimed itself independent, establishing the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in Pridnestrovia in August of that year. year, establishing its capital in Tiraspol.
A year later, Moldova declares its independence cia of the USSR. Months later, a brief war broke out between the Moldovan forces and the Transnistrian separatists which ended with a ceasefire and the establishment of a zone of security, a sort of triple border guarded by troops from both sides and by a Russian peacekeeping force.
The The conflict has been on hold since then and the attempts made to find a definitive solution have not borne fruit.
Efforts to eliminate the Soviet arms depot have also been unsuccessful in Kolbasna, despite some promising developments almost two decades ago.
At an Organization summit for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), held in 1999 In Estambul, Moscow agreed to withdraw a part of the ammunition and weapons kept in Transnistria and to eliminate the rest .
Between the years 2000 Y 2000, Russia took entire trains loaded with weapons and ammunition from the Kolbasna depot, where by then it was estimated that there were some 40. 000 tons of this material.
This process, however, was paralyzed by decision of the Transnistrian authorities and has not been able to be reactivated, despite the offers of the OSCE to collaborate in the elimination of this material.
A Russian presence extended in time
Although in today it is estimated that there are nails 20. 000 tons of Soviet weapons and ammunition in Kolbasna, it is not known for sure how much material is left there.
“The truth is that nobody knows for sure. It’s a big secret, ”says John MacLeod, senior analyst on issues of Russia and the ex-Soviet space at Oxford Analytica, a consultancy on geopolitical issues based in Oxford (United Kingdom), when consulted on this subject by BBC Mundo.
“It’s probably just ammunition and small arms, because it’s Soviet-era material. It is a collection of old weapons, possibly models and types that the modern Russian Army does not use or need . It is not particularly valuable weaponry, ”he adds.
Despite this, MacLeod points out that Moscow has resisted requests to permanently eliminate this deposit.
“The most they sometimes say is ‘yes, we’ll talk about those things’, but that’s all,” he says.
Those appeals have been maintained over time.
In September of this year, in his annual address to the UN General Assembly, Moldavian President Maia Sandu reiterated her request for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria and the disposal of weapons and ammunition stored in Kolbasna.
“This continues to be a threat to the security and environment of the region and beyond. We are counting on the support of the international community to achieve this objective ”, said Sandu.
And, apart from the OSCE initiative to cooperate in the elimination of the remaining arsenal, we also There have been proposals so that, at least, the Russian military withdraws from the place and an international mission assumes the protection of the material present there.
Moscow has refused to allow other forces to take over the protection of material or peacekeeping tasks in the area.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko warned last September that the issue of replacing the troops that his country has in Transnistria was not being discussed then and that he considered that it would be p I finished due to the “crucial mission” they fulfill.
“Not a single armed incident has been registered. For this reason, we believe that its presence in the region is legitimate , as it is based on a solid legal basis. Our position remains the same and that is that when an acceptable political agreement is reached between Tiraspol and Chisinau, the issue of the Russian peacekeeping operation will probably come up. At this moment, we think that this stage has not yet been reached, ”Rudenko said in statements to the Russian agency TASS.
Real and unlikely dangers
The presence of the Soviet arsenal in Kolbasna has been repeatedly denounced by the Moldovan authorities as a danger to people and the environment.
“The problem is that, for the last two decades, has not allowed the access to the warehouse to any international observer . The information is provided only by the separatist regime or the contingent of the Russian Federation, “said former Moldovan Defense Minister Vitalie Marinuta, in an interview in 2015 to DW.
Marinuta He also cited a study by the Moldavian Academy of Sciences, according to which an explosion in that deposit would have a power similar to that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb .
MacLeod, however, dismisses the risks of an explosion at the Russian arsenal in Kolbasna.
“I don’t think the risk of an explosion be very big. It is difficult because, in the end, those weapons are under the control of the Russian Army. I suppose they have systems to store them and so that, in the event of a fire, it will probably only be partial. It would not be a good thing, but it would not be like Hiroshima “, says the expert to BBC Mundo.
Others The dangers associated with this deposit have to do with the risk that it serves to fuel arms trafficking to conflict zones.
For decades, Transnistria has been singled out as a place where different supposedly occur types of illegal activities, from human trafficking to arms trafficking, and it has even been speculated that weapons that were used in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia came from that region.
“Weapons are believed to have been stolen or taken from Transnistria, possibly from the warehouse. We do not know. Basically that is a kind of uncontrolled territory and not very well governed. There is a lot of illicit activity and smuggling of all kinds and that includes weapons . So if you were an obscure Russian arms dealer operating on the black market, Transnistria would probably be a good place to operate from, ”says MacLeod.
“ But, at the same time, If you want to buy weapons in Transnistria, I don’t think you need to go to the warehouse . I’m sure you could get other providers. I do not believe that the main cause of arms trafficking in Transnistria is that arsenal but the fact that it is not a state: it is a place governed in a strange way ”, he adds.
Weapons of politics
But if the weapons and ammunition stored in Kolbasna are old and no longer have much real value for the Russian Army Why hasn’t Moscow finished closing the warehouse and getting rid of them?
“Their motivations are political. That is perfectly clear. By keeping that depot, Moscow can say ‘I’m sorry, but we have to take care of those weapons and therefore we have to keep troops in Transnistria,’ says MacLeod.
Explain that with this presence, Russia guarantees a certain interference in what happens in Moldova, a neighboring country that has aspirations to join the European Union.
“Russia in different instances helped create through civil wars in the decade of 1940 small entities of this type such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and Transnistria in Moldova. And now we are seeing it in certain regions in eastern Ukraine, ”says MacLeod.
“ That is a way to weaken those states that Russia sees as not very friendly , to keep them under control and leave open the possibility of a Russian military intervention ”, he adds.
The expert considers that at present it is unlikely that an armed conflict will occur in Transnistria, since there is a kind of “strangely stable” status quo with which nobody is happy, but with the that everyone can live together.
“It is not that there is a great probability that we will see a conflict in Transnistria, but by maintaining a presence of the Russian Army there, Moscow maintains the potential to act there,” he concludes.
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