In an interview with TVR Moldova, the director of the Information and Security Service of Moldova, Alexandru Mustiatse, said that the Russian Federation is preparing an attack on this country in 2023. They said that the Kremlin already has a ready-made plan of aggression against Moldova, the implementation of which will directly depend on Russia's success in the war against Ukraine. At the same time, the head of the Moldovan special service stated that the Kremlin wants to create a "joint" with the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR). He also said that the intentions of the Russians pose a very high risk for Chisinau as the capital of the country.
If you read the above literally, you can make the following picture: in Chisinau, it seems that they expect that the Russian Federation will be able to build a "corridor" to "Transnistria" through the lands of Southern Ukraine, and this very condition is considered the "starting point" for the start of Russia's war against Moldova . But if you work more carefully with some data from open sources, the configuration looks exactly the opposite - the Kremlin can start a "limited war" against Moldova precisely as a "compensator" for its failures in the war against Ukraine.
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With this in mind, it is worth evaluating the balance of power of the parties. The Military Balance 2022 guide indicates that the armed forces of Moldova have 5.15 thousand regular servicemen, and 58 thousand reservists are ready to strengthen them.
The ground forces of the Republic of Moldova have 3.25 thousand servicemen, divided into 4 light brigades and 1 brigade of Special Operations Forces. The declared amount of equipment and weapons at their disposal is nine BTR-D armored personnel carriers, 12 BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, 44 BMD-1 assault vehicles, 52 MT-LB light tractors and 80 TAB-71 armored personnel carriers (almost 200 armored combat vehicles ). The declared number of artillery systems and MLRS is almost 250 units, including: 31 MT-12 guns, 31 D-20 howitzers, 20 Hyacinth-B howitzers, 16 M-30 guns and 11 Uragan MLRS. as well as 132 mortars of 82 mm and 120 mm calibers.
The declared number of army air defense equipment is 28 ZU-23-2 automatic anti-aircraft guns and 11 S-60 anti-aircraft guns.
The Air Force of Moldova has 600 servicemen. They have at their disposal two An-2 aircraft, six Mi-8 helicopters and apparently as many as three S-125M1 air defense systems. But such data can be questioned at least due to information from open sources that Moldova actually managed to "sell" its S-125s.
The Military Balance 2022 does not provide detailed data on the grouping of the russians in Transnistria, but only mentions the presence of 1,500 servicemen of the Russian army, "several" Mi-8s and seven Mi-24 attack aircraft. Therefore, we will further outline the data that was known as of May 2022, and which was previously described by Defense Express. At that time, it was said that the armed forces of the russian federation have up to 100 units of armored vehicles in this enclave and can form up to two battalion tactical groups. At the same time, the armed formations of the PMR itself have up to 40 T-64 and T-72 tanks, about 30 units of BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles and up to 100 units of BTR-60 and BTR-70 armored personnel carriers, as well as up to 40 units of BM-21 Grad MLRS. In general, the military group in Transnistria can have approximately 8,000 bayonets, up to 40 tanks, up to 240 armored fighting vehicles and up to 40 self-propelled guns.
Formally, the russians have a qualitative advantage in the presence of Mi-24 tanks and attack helicopters. But in terms of manpower and available armored combat vehicles, the russians have a quantitative advantage over the Moldovan armed forces only at the level of 2.4:1 and 2:1, respectively. This can significantly complicate the russians' implementation of land offensive plans on Moldovan land, especially in the direction of Chisinau. This, in turn, means the need to involve the "air component" of the operation.
Manned tactical aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces do not risk flying into the air defense zone. Therefore, it should not be ruled out that the Kremlin's possible aggression against Moldova will be accompanied by missile strikes on the country's critical infrastructure. All the more so, as the Russians have already used Moldovan territory to "fly" their cruise missiles into the airspace of Ukraine, and the official Chisinau could not do anything about it.
If Russia dares to aggress against Moldova under the pretext of "protecting Russian speakers", any form of attack will carry a direct threat to Ukraine.
This will mean, in particular, the return of the potential danger to Odessa, which was removed in May 2022 after Neptun and Harpoon anti-ship missiles were put on combat duty.
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