Russia's humanitarian assistance is a planned propagandist action, Chisinau claims
The shipment of humanitarian assistance to Transnistria by a number of Russian political and state institutions can be qualified as a planned PR action, reads the Commentary issued by the Moldovan Ministry of Reintegration today.
The Ministry expressed surprise and concern that "the deliberate misinformation by [Transnistrian leader] Igor Smirnov caused such operative and non-adequate response from behalf of some structures in the Russian Federation". The Ministry perceived as "a primitive blackmail" the Smirnov's statements about a 'humanitarian catastrophe' caused by Moldova and Ukraine's joint actions, "while Smirnov is himself blocking the work of Transnistrian enterprises with the help of his power structures".
The Moldovan Ministry drew attention to "the enviable flexibility of the Transnistrian administration at moments when its shadowy incomes are in jeopardy: a short-time de-blocking of the border - for an emergency importation of those commodities which constitute the lion's share of re-exports from the region - is but a new proof of the political background of the Transnistrian administration's actions, and a proof that there exist no blockade or whatever prerequisites for a humanitarian catastrophe".
According to the Ministry's data, during the two days of the partial border de-blocking by Tiraspol, various companies had managed to import nearly 1,400 tons of chicken meat into the Transnistrian region. And since the beginning of the year, Transnistria has already imported 12,600 tons of foodstuffs, including 9,700 tons of meat, 890 tons of fish, over a thousand tons of sugar, 18 tons of medicines.
"These figures are not simply incompatible with the very notion of a humanitarian catastrophe, but obviously exceed all thinkable volumes of imports of food products that could be intended for the population's consumption, and not for re-exports", the document said.
The Commentary said that this propagandist action, staged and directed by the authors of the so-called 'humanitarian catastrophe in Transnistria', is falling out of all norms of the international humanitarian law, and requires a responsible assessment. // Infotag
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