[Verginius Rufus]

Transdniestria is between Moldova and Ukraine--it is the part of Moldovia that already belonged to the USSR from the beginning as opposed to the chunk of Romania that Stalin got as part of his loot from the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939. (It had been the Moldovian A.S.S.R.)

I think Transdniestria is about evenly divided between Romanian-speakers, Ukrainian-speakers, and Russian-speakers. It will probably remain under Russian control regardless of whether Putin annexes the rest of Ukraine...just like the Kaliningrad area belongs to Russia despite not being adjacent to the rest of Russia.

[dangus]

The thing is that while Transdniestra is wholly dependent on Russia (and formerly Ukraine), it was never taken over by Russia. But if all these oblasts were to separate from Ukraine (which I highly doubt), I’m sure Transdniestra would unify or all-but-unify with whatever republic novorussia forms, or if Novorussia joins Russia, it would join too... and be contiguous.