Dublin: “Russian army, go home!”
A group of Moldovans residing in Ireland demonstrated today in front of the Russian Embassy in Dublin chanting “Russian army go home, leave Moldova alone.”
The Bessarabian community from Ireland who are the organizers of the demonstration, said they wanted to show to the international public that Russia is the one which continues to keep its troops on the ground of Moldova.
“It is very important to demand Russia to withdraw its army from the Republic of Moldova. The protest is a democratic way to express the wishes of the Moldovans living abroad. Russia must recognize its mistakes and try to overcome them peacefully,” the representative of the Bessarabian community from Ireland said.
The participants stated that the Russian troops’ deployment on foreign grounds intimidates the inhabitants and halts the development of the region.
Today the Moldovans mark 200 years since the Russian annexation of Bessarabia.
The Russian Empire expressed for the first time its intention to annex Moldova during the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-1812, when Czar Alexander I, whose armies already occupied the Danubian Principalities, conferred with France's Napoleon I at Tilsit, in July 1807. However, the May 1812 Bucharest Peace Treaty which, shortly before Napoleon's armies invaded Russia, put an end to that war, stipulated the annexation of only the eastern half of Moldova, thereafter dubbed Bessarabia.
In 1918, in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, Bessarabia joined Romania and was part of Romania until 1940, when the latter surrendered it to the Soviet Union under the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Bessarabia has resurfaced in use as a synonym for Moldova, after the country's proclamation of independence in 1991. Bessarabian is sometimes used as a synonym for Moldovan.
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