Pro-Russian Transnistria is on a collision course with the Republic of Moldova. Under international law, the region belongs to Moldova, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it split off from the newly independent republic.
In 2006, the last special congress of separatists decided to call a referendum on joining Russia. The region is now being used by Russia to inflame tensions and assert Russian influence in the region, writes Alexander Nekrassov, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Moscow.