14th Army involvement in Transnistria

The involvement of the Soviet
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...

14th Guards Army in the War of Transnistria
War of Transnistria
The War of Transnistria was a limited conflict that broke out in November 1990 at Dubăsari between pro-Transnistria forces, including the Transnistrian Republican Guard, militia and Cossack units, and supported by elements of the Russian 14th army, and pro-Moldovan forces, including Moldovan...

was extensive and contributed to the outcome, which left the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic

Transnistria

Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...

with de facto independence from the Republic of Moldova.

Background

The 14th Guards

Russian Guards

Guards or Guards units were and are elite military units in Imperial Russia, Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. The tradition goes back to the retinue of a knyaz of medieval Kievan Rus' and the streltsy, the Muscovite harquebusiers formed by Ivan the Terrible by 1550...

Army was formed as a unit of the Soviet Army

Soviet Army

The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...

circa 1956 from the 10th Guards 'Budapest' Rifle Corps, formerly part of the Odessa Military District

Odessa Military District

The Odessa Military District was a military administrative division of the Imperial Russian military, the Soviet Armed Forces and the Ukrainian Armed Forces and was known under such name from around 1862 to 1998. It was reorganized as part of the Military of Ukraine and the Military of Moldova in...

with headquarters in Chişinău

Chisinau

Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...

.

In the 1980s the army headquarters was moved to Tiraspol

Tiraspol

Tiraspol is the second largest city in Moldova and is the capital and administrative centre of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic . The city is located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River...

, within the then Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. By 1991, the army was made up of four motor rifle divisions and other smaller units. Only the 59th Guards Motor Rifle Division

59th Guards Rifle Division

The 59th Guards Kramatorsk Order of Red Banner, Order of Suvorov, Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Motor-Rifle Division of the Soviet Union's Red Army was initially formed near Krasnodar in March 1942 as the 197th Rifle Division . On the division's formation Colonel M. I...

and some smaller units, including the 1162nd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment were on the left bank of the Dniester in the region of Transnistria. Other formations, including the 28th, 86th Guards, and 180th Motor Rifle Divisions, were over the border in Ukraine and became part of the Ukrainian Ground Forces

Ukrainian Ground Forces

The Ukrainian Ground Forces are the land force component of the Military of Ukraine. They were formed from Soviet Army formations, units, and establishments, including three military districts , that were on Ukrainian soil when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990-92.Between the fall of the USSR and...

. According to the Army sources, local Transnistrians made up the great majority of its soldiers, including 51 percent of the officers and 79 percent of the draftees.

War of Transnistria

While the official policy of the Russian Federation early after the outbreak of the widespread armed conflict in 1992 was one of neutrality, many soldiers and officers of the 14th Army were sympathetic to the PMR cause and had defected to the PMR and actively participated in the fighting as part of its armed forces the Republican Guards. Furthermore, a considerable amount of the army’s materiel

Materiel

Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....

was taken without resistance or given to the PMR armed forces.

The commanding officer of the Army, General G. I. Yakovlev, was openly supportive of the newly created PMR. He participated in the founding of the PMR, served in the PMR Supreme Soviet and accepted the position as the first chairman of the PMR Department of Defense on 3 December 1991, causing the Commander-in-Chief

Commander-in-Chief

A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...

of the CIS

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

armed forces, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov

Yevgeny Shaposhnikov

Yevgeny Ivanovich Shaposhnikov is a Russian military leader and business figure, Marshal of Aviation .Shaposhnikov was born on a farm near Aksay in Rostov Oblast Russia...

, to relieve him of his rank and service in the Russian military. Yakovlev's successor, General Yuriy Netkachev has assumed a more neutral stance in the conflict. However, his attempts at mediation between Chişinău

Chisinau

Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...

and Tiraspol

Tiraspol

were largely unsuccessful.

On 23 March 1992, Shaposhnikov signed a decree authorising the transfer of military equipment of 14th Guards Army units stationed on the right bank of the Dniester

Dniester

The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...

to the Republic of Moldova. This military equipment had constituted the majority of the materiel utilized by the Moldovan army in the ensuing War of Transnistria

War of Transnistria

The War of Transnistria was a limited conflict that broke out in November 1990 at Dubăsari between pro-Transnistria forces, including the Transnistrian Republican Guard, militia and Cossack units, and supported by elements of the Russian 14th army, and pro-Moldovan forces, including Moldovan...

. A second decree, issued on 1 April by Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...

, transferred the personnel of the 14th Guards Army, as well as all left-bank military equipment, including a large weapons stockpile at Cobasna

Cobasna

Cobasna is a commune consisting of three villages - Cobasna, Suhaia Rîbniţa , and Cobasna station - situated in northern Transnistria, Moldova. It is controlled by the authorities of Transnistria. It is located 2 km from the Ukrainian border, in the Rîbniţa sub-district...

, under Russian jurisdiction.

By June 1992 the situation had escalated to an open military engagement. With the near disintegration of the army during the heaviest fighting in and around the city of Bendery, in the wake of a coordinated offensive by Moldovan forces, General Major Alexander Lebed arrived at the 14th Army headquarters on 23 June with standing orders to stop the ongoing conflict with any available means, inspect the army, prevent the theft of armaments from its depots and ensure the unimpeded evacuation of armaments and Army personnel from Moldovan and through Ukrainian territory. After briefly assessing the situation, he assumed command of the army, relieving Netkachev, and ordered his troops to enter the conflict directly. On 3 July at 03:00, a massive artillery strike originating from the 14th Army formations stationed on left bank of the Dniester obliterated the Moldovan force concentrated in Gerbovetskii forest, near Bendery, effectively ending the military phase of the conflict. According to at least one Moldovan source, 112 Moldovan soldiers were killed by the salvo.

Aftermath

Since the end of the conflict, a separate Russian unit was moved into the region as part of the joint Russian-Moldovan-Transnistrian peacekeeping force, the Joint Control Commission

Joint Control Commission

The Joint Control Commission , is a tri-lateral peacekeeping force and joint military command structure which operates in a buffer zone on the border between the Republic of Moldova and the disputed territory controlled by the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic .-History:Following the War of...

. The 14th Guards Army itself was reformed in April 1995 into the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Moldova which came under the command of the Moscow Military District

Moscow Military District

The Moscow Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In 2010 it was merged with the Leningrad Military District, the Northern Fleet and the Baltic Fleet to form the new Western Military District.-History:In the beginning of...

and was charged with guarding the weapons stockpile at Cobasna

Cobasna

. The force is now around 1200 strong, and according to Kommersant

Kommersant

Kommersant is a commerce-oriented newspaper published in Russia. , the circulation was 131,000.- History :The newspaper was initially published in 1909, and it was closed down following the Bolshevik seizure of power and the introduction of censorship in 1917.In 1989, with the onset of press...

-Vlast in 2005, consisted of the 8th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the 1162nd Anti-Aircraft Rocket

Surface-to-air missile

A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...

Regiment, 15th Signals Regiment, and other support units.

Current situation

The operational group is as of September 2006 commanded by Major General Boris Sergeyev of Russia and numbers 1,199 troops. It serves alongside the Joint Control Commission

Joint Control Commission

.

On 18 November 2008, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution, urging Russia to "respect its commitments which were taken at the Istanbul OSCE Summit in 1999 and withdraw its illegal military presence from the Transdnestrian region of Moldova in the nearest future."

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