Russia to Hold Presidential Vote in Pro-Putin Transnistria

Russia's Central Election Commission is sending 192,000 ballot papers to Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria, where people with Russian citizenship will be able to vote in the March 18 presidential elections.

The leader of the region, Vadim Krasnoselsky, said on Monday in Moscow that Transnistria wants to provide more votes than ever before at the Russian presidential polls.

"The main goal is to organise the electoral process in such a way that on March 18, we will have a record number of those who were present at the polls," said Krasnoselsky, repeating his view that the future of Transnistria should be as a part of the Russian Federation.

Moldova was not consulted about the polling; bilateral relations between Chisinau's pro-European government and Moscow authorities are almost frozen.

In Transnistria, the separatist authorities will openly support Putin.

According to Russian daily Kommersant, a large forum enttled 'The Future Together with Russia' will be held in the breakaway capital Tiraspol on March 12 in order to convince people to vote for Putin.

In Transnistria, about 220,000 people have Russian citizenship. In 2017 alone, Russia handed out 10,000 citizenships in the unrecognised republic. Although official statistics show that Transnistria has about 500,000 inhabitants, little more than 300,000 still live there.

At a conference on Monday in Chisinau, experts from the Association for Foreign Policy in Moldova warned that Putin, who is almost certain to be re-elected, will maintain the 'frozen conflicts' in former Soviet states like Moldova.

Russia will also open another 16 polling stations in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia and nine in Georgia's South Ossetia region, both of which...