Bessarabia in the context of "Transnistria"

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a mainly continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km (92,046 sq mi) with a population of 19 million people. Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Europe's second-longest river, the Danube, empties into the Danube Delta in the southeast of the country. The Carpathian Mountains cross Romania from the north to the southwest and include Moldoveanu Peak, at an altitude of 2,544 m (8,346 ft). Bucharest is the country's capital, largest urban area, and financial centre. Other major urban areas include Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Iași, Constanța and Brașov.

Settlement in the territory of modern Romania began in the Lower Paleolithic, later becoming the Dacian Kingdom before Roman conquest and Romanisation. The modern Romanian state was formed in 1859 with the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza, becoming the Kingdom of Romania in 1881 under Carol I of Romania. Romania gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, formalised by the Treaty of Berlin. After World War I, Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina, and Bessarabia joined the Old Kingdom, forming Greater Romania, which reached its largest territorial extent. In 1940, under Axis pressure, Romania lost territories to Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union. Following the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, Romania switched sides to join the Allies. After World War II, it regained Northern Transylvania through the Paris Peace Treaties. Under Soviet occupation, King Michael I was forced to abdicate, and Romania became a socialist republic and Warsaw Pact member. After the uniquely violent Romanian revolution in December 1989, Romania began a transition to liberal democracy and a market economy.

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of 33,843 km (13,067 sq mi) and a population of 2.38 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova is a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic with its capital in Chișinău, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

Most of Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Ottoman Empire (to which Moldavia was a vassal state) and became known as Bessarabia. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia to form Romania. Still, Russian rule was restored over the entire region in 1878. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Bessarabia briefly became an autonomous state within the Russian Republic. In February 1918, it declared independence and then integrated into Romania later that year following a vote of its assembly. The decision was disputed by Soviet Russia, which in 1924 established, within the Ukrainian SSR, a so-called Moldavian autonomous republic on partially Moldovan-inhabited territories to the east of Bessarabia. In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, leading to the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR).

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact, the Berlin–Moscow Pact and the Nazi–Soviet Pact, was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with a secret protocol establishing Soviet and German spheres of influence across Eastern Europe. The pact was signed in Moscow on 24 August 1939 (backdated 23 August 1939) by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Tripartite discussions between the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France had broken down after the Soviet Union was excluded from the Munich Agreement in September 1938. Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, had indicated that the USSR was willing to support Czechoslovakia militarily if France did so as well. Subsequently, rapprochement between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany began in early 1939. Later that year the Soviet-German pact was agreed, committing both sides to neither aid nor ally itself with an enemy of the other for the following 10 years. Under the Secret Additional Protocol of 23 August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to partition Poland; Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia were allotted to the Soviet sphere, while Lithuania – apart from the Vilnius region, whose "interests" were recognized – lay in the German sphere (Lithuania – including the Vilnius region, but excluding a strip of land – was only transferred to the Soviet sphere by the 28 September 1939 Boundary and Friendship Treaty). In the west, rumored existence of the Secret Protocol was proven only when it was made public during the Nuremberg trials.

Between 28 June and 3 July 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, following an ultimatum made to Romania on 26 June 1940 that threatened the use of force. Those regions, with a total area of 50,762 km (19,599 sq mi) and a population of 3,776,309 inhabitants, were incorporated into the Soviet Union. On 26 October 1940, six Romanian islands on the Chilia branch of the Danube, with an area of 23.75 km (9.17 sq mi), were also occupied by the Soviet Army.

The Soviet Union had planned to accomplish the annexation with a full-scale invasion, but the Romanian government, responding to the Soviet ultimatum delivered on 26 June, agreed to withdraw from the territories to avoid a military conflict. The use of force had been made illegal by the Conventions for the Definition of Aggression in July 1933, but from an international legal standpoint, the new status of the annexed territories was eventually based on a formal agreement through which Romania consented to the retrocession of Bessarabia and cession of Northern Bukovina. As it was not mentioned in the ultimatum, the annexation of the Hertsa region was not consented to by Romania, and the same is true of the subsequent Soviet occupation of the Danube islands. On 24 June, Nazi Germany, which had acknowledged the Soviet interest in Bessarabia in a secret protocol to the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, had been made aware prior to the planned ultimatum but did not inform the Romanian authorities and was unwilling to provide support. On 22 June, France, a guarantor of Romanian borders, fell to Nazi advances. This is considered to be an important factor in the Soviets' decision to issue the ultimatum. The Soviet invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis.

The Kingdom of Romania (Romanian: Regatul României) was a constitutional monarchy that existed from 25 March [O.S. 13 March] 1881 with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 with the abdication of King Michael I and the Romanian parliament's proclamation of the Romanian People's Republic.

From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a personal union of two principalities: (Moldavia and Wallachia) called the Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia also known as "The Little Union" under a single prince to an autonomous principality with a Hohenzollern monarchy. The country gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire during the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War (known locally as the Romanian War of Independence), after which it was forced to cede the southern part of Bessarabia in exchange for Northern Dobruja. The kingdom's territory during the reign of King Carol I, between 13 (O.S.) / 25 March 1881 and 27 September (O.S.) / 10 October 1914 is sometimes referred to as the Romanian Old Kingdom, to distinguish it from "Greater Romania", which included the provinces that became part of the state after World War I (Bessarabia, Banat, Bukovina, and Transylvania).

Moldavia (Romanian: Moldova, pronounced [molˈdova] or Țara Moldovei lit. 'The country of Moldova'; in Romanian Cyrillic: Молдова or Цара Мѡлдовєй) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially independent and later autonomous state, it existed from the 14th century to 1859, when it united with Wallachia (Țara Românească) as the basis of the modern Romanian state; at various times, Moldavia included the regions of Bessarabia (with the Budjak), all of Bukovina and Hertsa. It also included the region of Pokuttya for a period of time.

The western half of Moldavia is now part of Romania, the eastern side belongs to the Republic of Moldova, and the northern and southeastern parts are territories of Ukraine.

The Romanian Old Kingdom (Romanian: Vechiul Regat or just Regat; German: Regat or Altreich) is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Romanian Principalities: Wallachia and Moldavia. The union of the two principalities was achieved when, under the auspices of the Treaty of Paris (1856), the ad hoc Divans of both countries, which were then under Ottoman Empire suzerainty, voted for Alexander Ioan Cuza as their prince. This process achieved a de facto unification under the name of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The region itself is defined by the result of that political act, followed by the Romanian War of Independence, the inclusion of Northern Dobruja and the transfer of the southern part of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire in 1878, the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania in 1881, and the annexation of Southern Dobruja in 1913.

The term came into use after World War I, when the Old Kingdom became Greater Romania, after including Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. The term now has mainly a historical relevance and is otherwise used as a common term for all regions in Romania included in both the Old Kingdom and the present borders (Wallachia, Moldavia, and Northern Dobruja).

Greater Romania (Romanian: România Mare) is the Kingdom of Romania during the interwar period, within its borders achieved after the Great Union; or the related pan-nationalist ideal of a nation state which would incorporate all Romanian-speakers.

In 1920, after the incorporation of Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia and parts of Banat, Crișana, and Maramureș, the Romanian state reached its largest peacetime geographical extent (295,049 km). Today, the concept serves as a guiding principle for the unification of Moldova and Romania.