Transnistria: Europe's other Crimea
Pro-Russian region carved out of Moldova could be an example of where parts of Ukraine are headed as tensions mount.
By Andrew Connelly, Al Jazeera, 14 Mar 2014

[....] Transnistria has its own currency, passports and number plates which aren't recognised by the vast majority of the world's countries. Moldova considers Transnistria to be occupied territory, a gangster state cultivated by Russia which poses a risk to their national security.

But residents in the capital Tiraspol, like shop assistant Nadya, disagree. "Life here is better than Moldova. Russia invests a lot of money in hospitals, kindergartens and other infrastructure. It would be nice to be independent but if we were reunited with Russia then that would be even better, like the Crimea." [....]

Gazprom, without her there is no motherland?

Russian Troops Seize Gas Plant Beyond Crimean Border, Ukraine Says
By Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, March 15, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — At least 80 Russian troops landed by helicopter Saturday to seize a natural gas terminal just beyond the regional border of Crimea, the Ukrainian government said. The action was Russia’s most provocative since its forces took over Crimea two weeks ago.

The latest troop advance comes one day before Crimea is to vote on whether to secede from Ukraine and is testing Ukrainian leaders’ resolve to engage Russia’s much more powerful military if it moved beyond Crimea.

By late afternoon, Ukranian troops were stationed outside the gas plant, which is on a slender sand bar to the east of the Crimean Peninsula, according to Unian, a Ukrainian news service that spoke to local police. The news agency did not say if shots had been fired. [....]

Foes of America in Russia Crave Rupture in Ties
By Ellen Barry, New York Times, March 15/16, 2014

MOSCOW — As Russia and the United States drift toward a rupture over Crimea, the Stalinist writer Aleksandr A. Prokhanov feels that his moment has finally arrived.

“I am afraid that I am interested in a cold war with the West,” said Mr. Prokhanov, 76, in a lull between interviews on state-controlled television and radio. “I was very patient. I waited for 20 years. I did everything I could so that this war would begin. I worked day and night.”

Mr. Prokhanov is an attack dog whose career has risen, fallen and risen again with the fortunes of hard-liners in the Kremlin. And it is a measure of the conservative pivot that has taken place in Moscow in Vladimir V. Putin’s third presidential term that Mr. Prokhanov and a cadre of like-minded thinkers — a kind of “who’s who of conspiratorial anti-Americanism,” as one scholar put it — have found themselves thrust into the mainstream.

For centuries, Russian history has been driven by a struggle between ideas, as reformers and revanchists wrestled over the country’s future. Mr. Putin keeps a distance from the ideological entrepreneurs clustered around the Kremlin, leaving his influences a matter of speculation.

But it became clear last week, as the United States threatened to cut off Russian corporations from the Western financial system, that influential members of the president’s inner circle view isolation from the West as a good thing for Russia [....]

As Putin’s Popularity Soars, Voices of Opposition Are Being Drowned Out
By Ellen Barry and Sophia Kishkovsky, New York Times, March 15/16, 2014

MOSCOW — There were two large rallies on Saturday in Moscow. One was a pro-government rally “in support of Crimea and against fascism,” led by a phalanx of husky men in identical crimson jackets, marching military-style in a sea of red. Some held signs reading “No Maidan in Moscow” and “Glory to Berkut,” references to Independence Square, the site of the Ukrainian protests in Kiev, and to the riot police who cracked down on the protesters.

The other was called a “March for Peace,” convened by the opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin. Holding paper doves aloft, they chanted “Putin Is Afraid of the Maidan” and a Ukrainian phrase that translates as “Putin, Get Out!” The police estimated that there were 3,000 people in this crowd, but it seemed many times larger, in the tens of thousands, filling a boulevard with bodies for many blocks. The split reaction here reflects domestic tensions. Mr. Putin, who was shaken by large antigovernment demonstrations in Moscow two years ago, is using the confrontation to consolidate the public behind his rule, tapping into the deep well of emotion about the Soviet Union’s suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany. The authorities have tried to mobilize support on federal television channels, and have muted independent voices on the Internet,

Last week, in the midst of the Crimean crisis and on the heels of the Sochi Olympics, Mr. Putin’s approval rating had increased to 71.6 percent, the highest point since he returned to the presidency in 2012, according to a poll released by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion last week.

It is common for Russians — even liberal ones — to say that Crimea is Russian land to begin with [....]