Russian president Vladimir Putin telephoned his American counterpart Barack Obama almost a week ago to hint to him what to expect next, and to tell him to send his secretary of state to Geneva to meet the Russian foreign minister. The Washington and Moscow versions of the phone call were at odds with each other.
The U.S. version did not mention that Putin talked about Transdnistria, a landlocked breakaway region of Moldova on the eastern bank of the Dnistr River and bordering on southwest central Ukraine.
Transdnistria reportedly did not want to follow Moldova to independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. What was then the Russian 14th Guards Army, stationed on its territory, backed its unilateral declaration of independence, which remains unrecognized by any UN member.
Transdnistria's slightly more than half-million population is not even one-third Russian. It is about one-third Moldovan and a little less than one-third Ukrainian. Bulgarians make up most of the rest. Its status has been subject of fruitless negotiations since 2006.
Putin, in his telephone call to Obama, ominously observed that Transdnistria is "experiencing a blockade, which has significantly complicated the living conditions for the region's residents, impeding their movement and normal trade and economic activities." This is not quite true. Companies just have to be registered in Moldova.
People also have to go officially through Moldova, of which the region is still a part under international law. Most of the population of Transdnistria has Moldovan passports. Some of them also have Russian or Ukrainian passports.
Earlier this week, in a telephone call with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin told her that it was necessary to find "effective measures to relieve the de facto foreign blockade" of Transdnistria.
About Ukraine, he "underlined the importance of constitutional reform to take account of the legal interests of residents of all Ukrainian regions." This is code-language for the federalization of Ukraine, a unitary state. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov used similar language in his Geneva meeting with U.S. secretary of state John Kerry.
According to a semi-official Russian news leak, Kerry has this week agreed to negotiate the constitutional structure of Ukraine with Lavrov, over the head of the Ukrainians. Russia wants break the central power of Kiev and federalize Ukraine. If the Russian report is correct, then Obama has agreed with this.
If so, or even if not so, who believes that this will be the end of the Ukrainian crisis? It will only make it easier for Russia's provocateurs in southeastern Ukrainian regions to "appeal" for Russian "help" against the Kiev centre.
That is where Transdnistria comes in. It takes less than an hour to drive southeast from Tiraspol, the capital of Transdnistria, to the major Ukrainian port city of Odessa. During the invasion of Crimea, Russian troops from Crimea landed less than an hour's drive east of Odessa on the mainland and set up roadblocks that they still maintain.
The whole of eastern and southern Ukraine is increasingly today called by Russians "Novorossiya" (New Russia), an historical term dating to the 18th century. Its territory runs from southeastern Ukraine all the way west to Moldova and includes Transdnistria.
If Russia were to occupy "Novorossiya," then Ukraine would lose its entire Black Sea coast and become landlocked. A Russian geopolitics specialist published several books 20 years ago laying claim to these regions. He is now a principal advisor to President Putin.