Cobasna ( Kolbasna )
Russia still has around 1,400 troops in Transnistria (aka Transdniestria - a Russian translated version - or Transdnestr, Pridnestrove), the long and narrow strip of Moldova bounded on the west by the Dnestr River and on the east by Ukraine. The predominantly Russian and Ukrainian population of Transnistria attempted in 1990 to secede from Moldova and has maintained a separate but unrecognized government since then, known as the Dnestr Moldovan Republic (and other variations), or in Russian as Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublika - PMR - using the city of Tiraspol as its capital. The breakaway region has looked to Russia for unofficial support.
Moldova has sought peaceful solutions to its ethnic and security problems, including offering the largely Russian population of the separatist Transdniester region broad autonomy. Bolstered by the presence of Russian troops, Transdniester continues to hold out for independence, thus denying Moldova control over significant industrial assets and its border with Ukraine.
Transdniester -- a narrow stretch of land situated along the Dniester River between Moldova proper and Ukraine -- broke away from Moldova over fears the Soviet republic would seek reunification with neighboring Romania. In 1992, Moldova and Transdniester fought a short war that ended with a Russia-mediated settlement enforced by Russian troops already stationed in the region. No country has recognized the self-proclaimed Transdniester Republic.
In early 1994, the government of the "Dnestr Republic" had armed forces of about 5,000 which included the Dnestr battalion of the Republic Guard and some 1,000 "Cossacks." As of early 1994, the Russian 14th Army (about 9,200 troops) consisted of one army headquarters, one motor rifle division, one tank battalion, one artillery regiment, and one anti-aircraft brigade. Their equipment consisted of 120 main battle tanks, 180 armored combat vehicles, and 130 artillery/multiple rocket launchers/mortars. Peacekeepers in Transnistria consisted of six airborne battalions supplied by Russia, three infantry battalions supplied by Moldova, and three airborne battalions supplied by the "Dnestr Republic."
The Russian arsenal in Transdniester belongs to the former 14th Soviet Army -- later the Russian Army -- which has been deployed in the region for decades. The 14th Army -- which changed its name to the Transdniester Operative Group of Russian Troops -- still has some 2,500 soldiers in the region, which Moscow says are necessary to guard the weapons and ammunition depots.
Under growing international pressure, Russia at a 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul signed the adapted Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, under which it pledged to withdraw all its troops and military equipment -- estimated at 50,000 weapons and more than 40,000 tons of ammunition -- from Transdniester by 2002. Much of the armaments, as well as the ammunition, were produced before World War II. About 2,500 Russian troops remain stationed in Transdniester as of late 2003.
Kolbasna is located in the Rybnitsa region of the PMR on the banks of the Rybnitsa River tributary on the border with Ukraine. Cobasna is home to an impressive selection of attractions and experiences, making it well worth a visit. The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria has probably the largest weapons depots in eastern Europe. There are concerns that the remainder of these arms stockpiles could be used in a future military conflict.
Chisinau has repeatedly asked Russia to fulfill the commitments made at the OSCE summit in 1999 to evacuate both the ammunition depot and the troops guarding it. In addition to the troops apparently guarding the warehouses, Russia still has 400-500 soldiers in Transnistria, which the Russians claim is a post-1992 peacekeeping force. The latest Russian plan for the ammunition depot at Kolbasna dates back to August 2019. At the time, the Russian Defense Minister was talking about starting a new process for disposing of ammunition stored in Kolbasna.
According to some reports, in case of possible sabotage by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the warehouse in Kolbasna may be mined. And, if the Ukrainian military gets there, it can be blown up, so the chances of taking possession of the arsenal are practically zero. According to experts, the explosion of the warehouse will be comparable to the power of a nuclear bomb (15-18 Kt in TNT equivalent) dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945. This is fraught with the most devastating consequences.
If it fell into the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it will allow them to conduct military operations for quite a long time. According to the Financial Times, now the Armed Forces of Ukraine spend about 6 thousand shells per day. According to the most preliminary estimates, the arsenal in Kolbasna, in the event of a capture, could be enough for about six months of hostilities. Some experts believe that with this reserve it is possible to stretch for a year, and without the help of the West. But since no one can name the exact amount of ammunition, these dates should also be considered approximate.
The rather nondescript village of Cobasna is located around 200 kilometers from the border, which divides the Republic of Moldova from the separatist region of Transnistria. The warehouse in Kolbasna was established in the 1940s. Known as artillery ammunition depot No. 1411. In fact, this is the strategic arsenal of the Western Military District (ZVO) of the USSR. According to military experts, most of the ammunition was stored in a warehouse after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the former GDR, Czechoslovakia and other former members of the Warsaw Pact Organization (OVD). The arsenal was administered by the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany of the 4th Operational Army of the USSR.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Transnistria – the region on the other side of the Dnjestr River – declared its independence, but was not officially recognized by any other country. The former Soviet Republic of Moldova in fact lost control of the swath of land, but still considered it to be part of its sovereign territory.
A huge weapons depot is located in Cobasna under the control of Transnistrian forces and Russian peacekeeping troops, who have been stationed there since fighting broke out in 1992. According to the latest data, the accumulated volume of ammunition in closed hangars is approximately 2.5 thousand railway cars. In warehouses in Transnistria, you can find everything from 152-mm and 122-mm howitzer shells to 125-mm tank rounds, mines for 80-mm and 120-mm mortars, as well as rockets for multiple rocket launchers.
Also in warehouses in Kolbasna there may be several million cartridges of caliber 7.62x39 mm, 5.45x39 mm. Moreover, according to experts, perhaps this is only half of what is generally stored there, because as of 2000, not 20 thousand tons, but 42 thousand tons of ammunition were stored in Kolbasna. No one can tell now exactly how much ammunition is stored in warehouses in Transnistria. It is only known that there are no armored vehicles and small arms there.
These warehouses are over seven decacdes old. The last time they were replenished was during the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the territory of the former “people’s democracies”: GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. All this “Soviet” junk is guarded by the Russian troops who have been here for thirty years now. “Transnistria” itself, many believe, was established to preserve this rubbish. And it lived on in its Soviet capsule this entire time. The only means of survival has been smuggling.
Now the warehouse is under the protection of the operational group of Russian troops (OGRF), the successor to the 4th operational army of the USSR. In March 1992, by decree signed by Boris Yeltsin, the place was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, said the former Minister of Defense of the Republic of Moldova, Viorel Cibotaru, quoted by Ziarul de Garda. “At that time it was known, there are documents that 42,000 tons of ammunition were stored in this warehouse” Viorel Cibotaru personally visited the warehouse in 1997. “Thousands of tons of shells for various types of artillery were stored, in more or less good condition, and a considerable amount of explosives in the category of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, many of them expired, many of them from 1937, for example, which had to be eliminated”, Chibotaru said. He claims that weapons from Kolbasna were sold in Libya and Chechnya.
At the OSCE Summit in Istanbul in 1999, in the Summit Declaration, the Russian Federation accepted a deadline for fulfilling its commitment to either remove or destroy all the holdings of the OGRF and to withdraw its armed forces from Moldova. The OSCE created a special voluntary fund through which interested participating States could support the operations. The OSCE Mission to Moldova was to facilitate the technical assistance and administer the fund. By the end of 2001, all military equipment limited by the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe had either been destroyed or removed from the region. An enormous quantity of heavy tanks, guns, rocket systems and the like were either cut up, blown up or removed via rail. Throughout this process, the OSCE Mission was present, working side by side with Russian military colleagues to provide verification documentation and financial support. However, the leadership of the Transdniestrian region continued to demand compensation for what it referred to as the loss of its patrimony– its claimed “inheritance” from the breakup of the Soviet Union. The authorities in Tiraspol were quite adamant about the massive ammunition depot in Kolbasna. The delaying tactics employed were simple, including the posting of armed groups to prevent access to the depot. Brigades of elderly women were mobilized to block roads, airport runways and railheads. During the period 2001-2004, the OSCE Mission assisted and supervised the destruction and removal by the Russian Federation from the Republic of Moldova of 456 pieces of military equipment, including tanks and heavy artillery, as well as 242 pieces of other equipment. They also helped remove 22,000 tons of ammunition from the warehouse in Kolbasna.
On 05 March 2003, when the Transdniestrian “Supreme Soviet” the legislative body of the separatist region – issued a decree recommending that Transdniestrian leader, Igor Smirnov, should “ensure” and “facilitate” withdrawal of the military stockpile. The OSCE Mission’s initial reports to Vienna on the decree were sceptical, as experience had taught them to be.
The Kolbasna base had been reinforced with an extra 60 military personnel to support the gargantuan task of loading more than 20,000 tonnes of ammunition. The materiél was loaded onto a conveyor for removal, travelling up a ramp from inside the bunker onto a truck, and was then driven to the railhead. It was manually unloaded onto a platform and carried into a train wagon. The physical demands of the exercise placed enormous constraints on the base commander’s planning. To speed up the process, the OSCE Mission has provided personnel with practical tools ranging from two forklifts to proper gloves.
A train would carry some 730 tonnes, a load considered to be average. However, it stopped such withdrawals in early 2004. the back gates were almost always open for shipments to customers, an Eldorado for arms-dealers and handy for the acquisition of hard currency.
In May 2022, the head of the republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky, reported that the protection of the arsenal in connection with current events had been strengthened, and "the political and technical decision on the disposal of ammunition should be made by the Russian Federation." Even the Transnistrian authorities cannot control the contents of the warehouse.
Although the Russian Federation committed itself at the OECD Summit in 1999 to withdrawing its forces from Transnistria, there are still around 1,500 Russian troops deployed there at the Cobasna depot. Weapons from the former Soviet 14th Army are still stockpiled there, including arms and ammunition stemming from the one-time "Brother States" of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Czechoslovakia.
Mainly due to the Ukraine crisis there is growing concern in the Moldovan capital Chisinau that the weapons could be used in a military conflict. The former Moldovan Defense Minister Vitalie Marinuta also sees other dangers. In an interview with DW, the general said that, according to his information, which has been confirmed by international organizations, there are still around 20,000 tons of ammunition for artillery and infantry as well as other military equipment stored there.
A study by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences has warned that the impact of an explosion of the depots would be "equivalent to the atomic bombs from Hiroshima and Nagasaki," said Marinuta. Because the expiration dates of the weapons have come and gone , the depot should be placed under international control as soon as possible, said the general. These controls were also important, he said, to prevent weapons getting into the hands of foreign fighters.
Transnistria has on many occasions been accused of being involved in trading with illegal weapons. Reporters of the investigative project RISE Moldova last year uncovered just how easy it was for someone to get hold of ammunition from Transnistria. The reporter said they were interested in purchasing weapons and were in possession of a grenade launchers with the corresponding ammunition. The traders had even promised to deliver any type of weapon they wanted. The whole "transaction" was carried out in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, which RISE Moldova said proved the inefficiency of the Moldovan security forces.
The political scientist Oazu Nantoi from Chisinau believes that Transnistria is also able to produce weapons. In a DW interview he said that weapons from the separatist region had been brought in many stages into international circulation. In the early 1990s weapons were illegally shipped to the Balkans for use in the Yugoslavia wars. There had even been price lists for weapons and ammunition. "We can give no guarantee that the current situation with the Russian military on Moldovan territory, with paramilitary forces in Transnistria and the weapons depot in Cobasna, will not lead to a further destabilization of the region, " said Nantoi.
Early on 27 April 2022, a specific case appeared in the Transnistrian can of worms gradually opened up by Russia — Cobasna. following spam attacks on the local population, the Russian propaganda proceeded to something bigger. Ukrainian saboteurs and drones immediately appeared in and above Cobasna. The political pundits from the Kremlin suddenly decided that Ukraine has so little weaponry (despite the regular and increasing supply of contemporary weapons from the West) that it cannot handle the war without the ancient Cobasna warehouse.
OPU adviser Oleksii Arestovych said in a hypothetical manner that “Moldova is our closest neighbour, whose fate we certainly care about. We have always stood, stand, and will stand with the people of Moldova. That is why Moldova can turn to us for help,” — and Putin’s spokesman Peskov immediately called this statement “provocative.” OPU adviser Oleksii Arestovych said in a hypothetical manner that “Moldova is our closest neighbour, whose fate we certainly care about. We have always stood, stand, and will stand with the people of Moldova. That is why Moldova can turn to us for help,” — and Putin’s spokesman Peskov immediately called this statement “provocative.”
Kremlin propaganda immediately commented that “Chisinau was forced to take this step, trying to maintain the remnants of neutrality under pressure from the United States, the entire Western bloc and Ukraine.”
Moldova made a major misstep (according to the Kremlin) when its president, Maia Sandu, signed a law on 19 April 2022 banning the black and orange striped ribbon and the symbols Z and V in the country. “We cannot allow the use of symbols in our country that represent or support the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Symbols change meaning depending on events, and they no longer have anything to do with the war that took place 77 years ago. They are about today’s war in Ukraine,” Sandu said, emphasizing that “those who do not condemn the war may demand the killing of Moldovans tomorrow or even today.“
The first information about the transfer of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the borders of Transnistria began to arrive on 26 February 2923. On 01 March 2023, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, announced that Kiev was preparing a provocation near Transnistria. The day before, the Russian military department released information about the preparation by the Kyiv regime of an invasion of the republic in response to the alleged "offensive of the RF Armed Forces from there." According to some reports , Ukrainian saboteurs, dressed in Russian uniforms, are planning to attack their own units in order to get an excuse to invade the PMR.
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