NATO’s top military commander said on Monday that Russia appeared to be following some of the same “hybrid warfare” script in dealing with the former Soviet republic of Moldova that it used before annexing Crimea and intervening in eastern Ukraine.
U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, , the head of NATO forces in Europe, speaking at the Atlantic Council on Monday, said if the Kremlin tried that in one of the NATO allies that border Russia—like the former Soviet republics in the Batlics, for example—it would risk triggering Article Five of NATO’s charter which is the section that calls on the alliance to come to the defense of a member state being attacked, the Daily Beast reports.
Moscow intervened in Ukraine amid growing unrest by pro-Russian residents and rebels. Philip Breedlove noted that “little green men” – troops in uniform of unclear national origin – helped the rebels shape the military situation in Ukraine.
“To the little green men thing, we’ve clearly now seen the script play out in Crimea, we’ve seen the script play out in eastern Ukraine. We’re beginning to see some of the script in Moldova and Transnistria,” Voice of America quotes Breedlove as saying.
Russian troops earlier this year staged military exercises in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, which borders Ukraine on the southwest, and Moldova’s president warned Moscow against annexing the region like it did Crimea.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin last year warned Moldova that its drive for closer ties to Europe could cause it to lose control of Transnistria for good and lead to more costly energy ties with Russia, its main gas supplier.
According to the Daily Beast, Russia watchers have been warning since the spring that Moldova could be Putin’s next target. With already 2,500 ‘peacekeepers’ stationed in the breakaway Moldovan province of Transnistria, Russia has a natural base of operations from which to begin destabilise the country’s pro-Western government.
