Transnistria in the context of "Republic of Moldova"

The Dniester (/ˈniːstər/ NEE-stər) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova (from which it more or less separates the breakaway territory of Transnistria), finally discharging into the Black Sea on Ukrainian territory again.

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 Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of southern and eastern Ukraine that are controlled by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the ongoing invasion. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occupied territories". As of 2024, Russia occupies almost 20% of Ukraine and about 3 to 3.5 million Ukrainians are estimated to be living under occupation; since the invasion, the occupied territories lost roughly half of their population. The United Nations Human Rights Office reports that Russia is committing severe human rights violations in occupied Ukraine, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, crackdown on peaceful protest and freedom of speech, enforced Russification, passportization, indoctrination of children, and suppression of Ukrainian language and culture.

The occupation began in 2014 with Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, and its de facto takeover of Ukraine's Donbas during a war in eastern Ukraine. In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. However, due to fierce Ukrainian resistance and logistical challenges (e.g. the stalled Russian Kyiv convoy), the Russian Armed Forces retreated from northern Ukraine in early April. In September 2022, Ukrainian forces launched the Kharkiv counteroffensive and liberated most of that oblast. Another southern counteroffensive resulted in the liberation of Kherson that November.

The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, shortened to Moldavian ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing the modern territory of Transnistria (today de jure in Moldova, but de facto functioning as an independent state; see Transnistria conflict) as well as much of the present-day Podilsk Raion of Ukraine. It was an artificial political creation inspired by the Bolshevik nationalities policy in the context of the loss of larger Bessarabia to Romania in April 1918. In such a manner, the Bolshevik leadership tried to radicalize pro-Soviet feelings in Bessarabia with the goal of setting up favorable conditions for the creation of a geopolitical "place d'armes" (bridgehead), in an attempt to execute a breakthrough in the direction of the Balkans by projecting influence upon Romanian Bessarabia, which would eventually be occupied and annexed in 1940 after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
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Urban-type settlement is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the Soviet Union and later also for a short time in socialist Bulgaria and socialist Poland. It remains in use today in nine of the post-Soviet states.

The designation was used in all 15 member republics of the Soviet Union from 1922. It was introduced later in Poland (1954) and Bulgaria (1964). All the urban-type settlements in Poland were transformed into other types of settlement (town or village) in 1972. In Bulgaria and five of the post-Soviet republics (Armenia, Moldova, and the three Baltic states), they were changed in the early 1990s, while Ukraine followed suit in 2023. Today, this term is still used in the other nine post-Soviet republics – Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. It is also used in Transnistria, an unrecognised breakaway state in Moldova.

Podolia or Podillia is a historic region in Eastern Europe located in the west-central and southwestern parts of Ukraine and northeastern Moldova (i.e. northern Transnistria).

Podolia is penetrated by Southern Buh river and bordered by the Dniester River to the south. It features an elongated plateau and fertile agricultural land covering an area of 40,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi). The two main rivers serve as important trade channels. Podolia is known for its cherries, mulberries, melons, gourds, and cucumbers.

Yedisan (also Jedisan or Edisan; Ukrainian: Єдисан, romanized: Yedysan, Romanian: Edisan, Ottoman Turkish: یدیصان, Turkish: Yedisan, Russian: Едисан, romanized: Yedisan, Dobrujan Tatar: Ğedísan) was a conditional name for Özi [Paşa] Sancağı (Ochakiv Sanjak) of Silistra Eyalet, a territory located in today's Southern Ukraine between the Dniester and the Southern Bug (Boh). It was placed by the Ottomans under the control of the Nogai Horde in the 17th and 18th centuries and was named after one of the Nogai Hordes. In the Russian Empire, it was referred to as Ochakov Oblast, while the Ottoman Turks called it simply Özü after the city of Ochakiv which served as its administrative center. Another name used was Western Nogai.

Geographically, it was the western part of the so-called Wild Fields that sprawled to the north of the Black Sea between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers. It lies east of Budjak and Bessarabia, south of Podolia and Zaporizhzhia, and west of Taurida. Since the mid-20th century, the territory has been divided between southwestern Ukraine and southeastern Moldova (southern Transnistria).

The Transnistria conflict (Romanian: Conflictul din Transnistria; Russian: Приднестровский конфликт, romanized: Pridnestrovsky konflikt; Ukrainian: Придністровський конфлікт, romanized: Prydnistrovskyi konflikt) is an ongoing frozen conflict between Moldova and the unrecognized state of Transnistria. Its most active phase was the Transnistria War. There have been several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the conflict. The conflict may be considered to have started on 2 September 1990, when Transnistria made a formal sovereignty declaration from Moldova (then part of the Soviet Union).

Transnistria is internationally recognized as a part of Moldova. It has diplomatic recognition only from two Russian-backed separatist states: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Moldova–Ukraine border, the official border between Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, was established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The length of the inland border is 1,222 kilometres (759 mi), of which 267 kilometres (166 mi) is fluvial (i.e., along rivers) and 955 kilometres (593 mi) is land border. About 454 kilometres (282 mi) of it constitutes the de facto border between Ukraine and the unrecognized breakaway republic of Transnistria.

The border runs from the northern Romania-Moldova-Ukraine tripoint in the northwest of the country, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi), from the Ukrainian village and border crossing of Mamalyha, Ukraine to Criva, Briceni, Moldova. It runs east until the city and border crossing of Mohyliv-Podilskyi, where it turns southeast and enters the channel of the river of Dniester. By the village of Nimereuca the territory of Transnistria begins, which ends by Purcari. Several kilometers further it turns west. By Basarabeasca District it turns south and runs until the southern Romania-Moldova-Ukraine tripoint near Galați, Romania and Reni, Ukraine, by the Danube.