transnistria
It’s already known after German Chancellor Scholz’s tacit admission last week that the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has morphed into an undeclared but limited hot one, but this tenuous state of affairs could easily collapse into an uncontrollable conflict if Transnistria falls.
There was some speculation last week that Moldova's unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria might become the tripwire for a wider war after its parliament requested Russian assistance for alleviating the economic blockade that Chisinau and Kiev have imposed on it. Tiraspol also requested Moscow's diplomatic efforts to revive stalled talks on its status, all of which the Kremlin promised to consider due to the fact that around half of the region's 450,000 residents are Russian citizens.

It was almost exactly a year ago in late February 2023 that Russia's top brass warned that Ukraine was plotting a false flag provocation in Transnistria that would be carried out by Azov militants in Russian uniforms. It was analyzed here at the time, but nothing ultimately happened, most likely because the West was hyper-focused on preparing for the ultimately failed counteroffensive that summer. Half a year after that disaster became undeniable, however, Transnistria is now back in the news.

The West would prefer to force that region's political capitulation through economic means in order to score a cost-free victory for boosting morale as Ukraine struggles to hold back Russia's gains in the aftermath of its victory in Avdeevka late last month. This explains the blockade, anti-government information warfare, and speculative infiltration of sleeper cell agents into that region, which have increasingly become unbearable for the local authorities and hence why they requested Russian support.

If the situation deteriorates, whether as a result of the aforementioned pressure or due to a provocation along the lines of the one that Russia warned about last year, then this separatist region could become the tripwire for a wider war. It's already known after German Chancellor Scholz's tacit admission last week that the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has morphed into an undeclared but limited hot one, but this tenuous state of affairs could easily collapse into an uncontrollable conflict if Transnistria falls.

Russia has over 1,000 peacekeepers there per a prior 1990s-era agreement with Moldova, which nowadays wants them to leave, plus approximately 200,000 citizens in that region. The first could easily be overpowered by a joint Romanian-backed Moldovan and Ukrainian pincer offensive, thus leaving the second's safety at the mercy of those two. Russia couldn't sit idly as that happens, yet it also can't conventionally intervene to avert that scenario since it lacks a "land bridge" to Transnistria.

President Putin might therefore feel compelled to "escalate to de-escalate" by ordering an all-out missile salvo against the attacking Romanian-backed Moldovan and Ukrainian forces and/or possibly using tactical nukes per what was recently reported about his country's supposedly low threshold. It also can't be ruled out that support infrastructure inside of Romania could be hit with conventional munitions for this purpose despite risking the activation of Article 5 if he calculates that the bloc would back down.

Starting World War III over Transnistria sounds absurd, which is why neither Russia nor NATO would likely risk it, but each might try to inflict major reputational damage on the other in the event that the West moves first by authorizing Romanian-backed Moldova and/or Ukraine to capture that region. NATO might consider this "low-hanging fruit" that could boost Western morale at this difficult moment while Russia could test Article 5 as explained above if it doesn't expect direct and overwhelming retaliation.

In the event that this scenario remains manageable, which can't be taken for granted, Russia would lose Transnistria along with its over 1,000 troops and at least one-fifth of a million citizens (who probably wouldn't be slaughtered but suffer under occupation) while Article 5 would be discredited. It's in both sides' interests to avert this mutually detrimental outcome, but that can only happen by deterring it through the resumption of peace talks or more riskily by Russia "escalating to de-escalate" if forced to.