The Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic (PMR) – known to the world as Transnistria – strikes outsiders as an oddity. Wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, it is a breakaway republic whose secession from Moldova is not recognised by any member state of the United Nations, including Russia, its guardian. A colossal statue of Lenin towers over the centre of its capital, Tiraspol, and a company called Sheriff – founded by a former KGB agent called Viktor Gushan – dominates its economy. Westerners picture it as a relic and a reliquary of the Soviet Union, and local entrepreneurs are happy to meet the need. The result is that those who take the trouble to tour the place return with their ideas reinforced rather than complicated.
But the PMR is more than a Soviet theme park. It is home to half a million people who, despite their dizzying ethnic and linguistic differences, have chosen to identify as Pridnestrovians. (Transnistria, which literally means “beyond the Dniester”, is deemed offensive by the locals because it was a name imposed on them by outsiders.)
Is the PMR a Russian marionette?
The Kremlin’s influence is palpable in the peacekeeping forces deployed by Moscow, which brokered a ceasefire between Tiraspol and Chisinau in the summer of 1992, and the bottomless nostalgia for the Russian Empire that radiates from the portraits of the Romanovs on almost every corner. At the same time, the PMR is also home to tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and refugees, and Kyiv has been reluctant to act against oligarchs from the PMR on its territory.
In addition to a national consciousness, the PMR has almost all the accoutrements of statehood – from currency to central bank, police to military, and parliament to presidency. It cannot be wished away. More than one senior Moldovan politician dismissed the PMR to me as a trivial sideshow.
This attitude catches the breath because the existence of a persistent internal conflict only frustrates Moldova’s effort to integrate itself into Europe. The PMR cannot, however, be merged into Moldova with force. Any such endeavour, drawing in Russia, could be cataclysm. The PMR is home to an enormous Soviet-era weapons dump that could, were it to detonate, be as lethal as a 10-kiloton nuclear explosion.
The source of the friction between Moldova and the PMR is language. Now there are many areas of difference. In the summer, El Pais reported that Chisinau was drawing up ambitious plans to persuade Tiraspol through incentives to remain with Moldova. Igor Dodon, the former president of Moldova, opined confidently to me that he could bring back the PMR into the Moldovan national fold.
Is unity feasible?
I put this question – among others – to Vadim Krasnoselsky, the President of the PMR. Sharp and articulate, he spoke openly and extensively – very, very extensively – about the past and future of the place he considers a full-fledged country.
Krasnoselsky hinted at the possibility of a confederation with Moldova, but remained sceptical that Moldovan society would countenance the concessions required to make it happen. He shared the contempt of Moldovan politicians – including nominally liberal politicians to whom I spoke in Chisinau – for the apparent denigration of Christianity at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. There wasn’t much common ground beyond this.
The most surprising element of the interview was his condemnation of the war in Ukraine as a catastrophe and his emphatic statement that the PMR would not allow its territory to be used for military action against Ukraine or Moldova.
The transcript has been edited for clarity.
Kapil Komireddi: There are reports that the government of Moldova has employed an international agency to help intensify the reintegration of the PMR into the Moldovan Republic. How do you view this attempt, and what are the prospects for its success?
Vadim Krasnoselsky: Mr Komireddi, may I ask you a question? Do you know the history of Pridnestrovie? I mean a small period of history – say the last 250 years? Why do I ask this question? Because if I have to answer your question, I have to touch upon the history of this region a little.
Today’s events are just one piece of a big chain of events, historical events, and you cannot analyse what is happening today without this long chain of historical events. If we’re speaking about a state, we have to speak about the people who live here. I have to explain a little about what kind of people live in Moldova, and what kind of people lives in Pridnestrovie. If you’re talking about the territory as such, the territory of Pridnestrovie, we must say that, historically, it has never belonged to Moldova but for a short period of time – the period between 1944 and 1991, when we had to live together jointly in one territorial space. And that territorial space was called the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic.
This is a very important detail, and we have to look at this detail carefully. In Moldova, people often try to forget it, not to speak about it, and to pretend that these realities have never existed. Here I have to say that, back in 1918, the territory of Bessarabia was annexed by the Romanian kingdom.
And the people in former Bessarabia still celebrate those events with a festive spirit, remembering those as happy days. But what was going on here in those days? In 1924, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was created here, on the territory of today’s Pridnestrovie. It was autonomous, and a part of Ukraine, in those days.
What was the reason for creating the PMSSR? The main purpose was to preserve the Moldovan identity – Moldovan language, Moldovan history, Moldovan culture – because Romanian authorities in those days wanted to preserve only one culture and one language: Romanian.
Moldovan language and culture and traditions were suppressed by the Romanian authorities. This persisted until 1940. The notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed on 23 August 1939. By that pact, Bessarabia became part of Russia. And then something important happened: Bessarabia was joined to the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic was created as a result. This is very important to remember. We did not come to them. They were joined by force to us.
But as the Soviet Union disintegrated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the former Soviet republics started to declare their sovereignties. The then Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic also took that path.
On August 23 1990, the Parliament of Moldova adopted a declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union. A committee of that Parliament then declared the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact legally void. In the same declaration, the Moldovan Parliament also declared the creation of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic void and illegal. In this way, Moldova legally abandoned us, renounced us, gave up on us. The leaders of the then Moldova – they were the separatists, actually, and they divided the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic into two parts: Moldova proper, and Pridnestrovie.
The final document – the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, which was adopted on August 27 1991 – held that the creation of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic was illegal. Moldova took on the responsibility to undo the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. And the same declaration of independence positioned Romanian as the only language of Moldova.
What do we, the people living here, do in such a situation? Moldova’s leaders not only destroyed the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic and created two parts. They also deprived our population of freedoms, of economic liberties, and of our human rights. The leaders of Pridnestrovie, the deputies of Parliament of the Soviet Pridnestrovie, they had no other choice than to create a mechanism of security, a mechanism of defence, against the measures adopted by Moldova. And at that moment the establishment of the Pridnestrovian statehood actually started. Since then, 34 years have passed.
I have also to mention a very important event, a tragic event, that is the war of 1991-1992, unleashed by Moldovan authorities. Nobody was declared responsible for those events, nobody held accountable for them. The most active phase of that war was started on June 19 1992.
But there was a very important event before that. One day before invading the Pridnestrovian city of Bendery, on June 18 1992, the Parliament of Moldova adopted its decision on finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Pridnestrovie, even as the military of Moldova prepared for invasion. Moldovan authorities don’t like to remember this history. But they can’t wish it away, either.
In those very days, there was a so-called “International Peace Mission” in the town of Bendery consisting of different countries who took part in that mission – Romania and, I believe, Russia, and other international observers – to keep the peace in that city. After the first shots were fired, the missionaries of peace just ran away. They were actually rescued by the Pridnestrovian military and brought from Bendery, from that dangerous zone. And yet they didn’t write a word, or say anything, about what happened. Only after the deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces, on July 29 1992, did the war stop.
As I said, almost 34 years have passed. It is very important to understand what kind of people live here. After the Treaty of Jassy in 1792, the Dniester River became effectively the border between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. And the Russian Queen Catherine the Great invited people from different countries and different layers of population to come here and to settle down here.
Numerous Moldovans from the right bank of the Dniester also came here. They came, among other things, to get the protection of the Russian Empire for themselves. Many people came from all over the Russian empire.
And today we have representatives of around 72 different nationalities and ethnic groups. The largest groups are Moldovans, Ukrainians, and Russians. But we also have the Gagauz, the Bulgarians – also a big group – and Poles, Germans, Jews —
KK: Indians?
VK: No. (Laughs.) This group of people actually started to be called “Pridnestrovian” people. You cannot say that only Moldovans live here. Or that only Russians or Ukrainians or Bulgarians or Gagauz live here. We have a multinational, multi-ethnic Pridnestrovian people. Each group respects the traditions and national peculiarities of others who make up Pridnestrovie. We have three official languages: Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian. Accordingly, we have schools that use these languages as the medium of instruction.
Now let’s look at what kind of people were created in Moldova. In Moldova, there is only one official language – Romanian. There is only Romanian literature and only Romanian traditions. You could say that, over the past 34 years, a new people has been created in Moldova who could be called the “Romanian Bessarabians”.
They don’t have the Moldovan language. The Moldovan language is only preserved in Pridnestrovie. There is the international registry of languages – ISO – listing all the languages in the world, including those with only a thousand speakers. This list does not include the Moldovan language – it was excluded. None of the Moldovan leaders even tried to defend the Moldovan language. This is a fact.
So now I can come to your question: whether we are ready or not for reintegration with Moldova. Again, I have to go back to shed light on the negotiation process between Pridnestrovie and Moldova. Pridnestrovie has over the years proposed many variants of coexistence with Moldova.
The OSCE mission supported some of the ideas of settlement – for example, it once supported our idea of creating a federal form of coexistence with Moldova. But Moldova, as usual, actually stopped negotiations at the very last moment and left the table. Of course, we are talking about our coexistence in the future. We can, for example, live in a confederation, in which we can preserve the identity of the Pridnestrovian people – the language, traditions, culture, and also the Moldovan language. But the question is: is Moldova ready to do this?
I called on the leadership on Moldova to engage in a dialogue. I have done it many times. We unfortunately have no dialogue, and I doubt if we will in the future. The destiny of Pridnestrovie will be decided by the multinational Pridnestrovian peoples – not the President, not parliament, not officials, but only the people.
According to our constitutional, the bearer of sovereignty is the people. We have carried out seven referendums here in Pridnestrovie, and the people expressed their will to live in an independent state of Pridnestrovie. Moldova is striving to become a member of the European Union. It’s their choice. We are not against it.
And the referendum to join the EU, which will take place in Moldova, is only for Moldovan citizens – we were not invited to take part in that referendum. It’s the same as in the 1990s, when we were pushed by Moldova from the legal framework [of their statehood].
So all their talk about “reintegration” is only a cover. In fact, they have actually given up on Pridnestrovie. They refuse to build anything in common with Pridnestrovie. But we are ready to build good neighbourly relations with them. We have to keep the peace. Our economy must work. People must be able to move freely between these two banks of the river. We are ready to do this. We have to talk about this, and we have to move in this direction as well.
KK: Is there any ongoing dialogue between you and the leadership of Moldova?
VK: We don’t have an official dialogue. We have negotiators from either side – two individuals – who conduct talks. There are no negotiations at the highest level.
KK: You seem to be arguing that Pridnestrovie is the true repository of Moldovan culture and traditions, and what is accepted as the internationally recognised state of Moldova is simply an extension of Romania. Correct?
VK: Yes, that would be correct. Moldova is the only state in the world that voluntarily gave up on its state identity. Think about it: Moldova doesn’t have its own language. Take Ukraine. They have their own language. The Poles have their language. Germans have German language. Moldovans have the Romanian language.
Besides language, there is literature, traditions, arts – everything is Romanian in Moldova. Moldova has been Romanianising of its own will. If we look at Moldovan culture, it’s historically quite long. It has a history of around seven centuries. Moldovans historically used the Cyrillic script, and their leaders called themselves “Moldovan”.
Nobody is against the Romanian state. Romania is a proud and strong country. But we are talking about the Moldovan identity, which is preserved only in Pridnestrovie. This fact, I think, irritates the state of Moldova. We have people here who proudly identify as Moldovans – about 150,000 people, out of a total population of 500,000 – and they identify their language as Moldovan. But the Moldovan state made the choice to identify everything as Romanian.
KK: Moldovan, the language you speak of, how distinct is it from Romanian? You write it in a different script in Pridnestrovie. But, well, there are other languages that are written in their native script and also written in a Romanised or Latin script, but the languages and their essence remain the same, don’t they?
VK: Of course, these two languages, Moldovan and Romanians, are very, very similar. Here, you may have to ask the linguists. But let me try to answer your question. When the Moldovan language used the Cyrillic script, they had many words and linguistic features from the Slavic languages, from Russian. When Romania as a state was created and established, the official language still was this Moldovan language.
Romanians then began calling their language, not Moldovan, but Romanian, in accordance with the name of their state. And they began using the Latin script. And after they introduced the Latin script, a number of words and expressions from Italian, from Spanish, from Latin-script languages – they flowed into the Romanian language. But the base is the same for Moldovan and Romanian. There may be some minor differences of dialect and so on. The Moldovans now use the Latin script and call it the Romanian language. And thus the language they use has acquired certain differences from the language our Moldovans use. Nobody is against the Romanian language. It has the right to exist. But there is also the Moldovan language.
KK: If the Moldovan government were formally to rename their official language and call it “Moldovan”, would that reassure you enough to reintegrate?
VK: This is practically impossible. I would like to remind you that the main document of Moldova is the Declaration on Independence of Moldova, adopted on August 27 1991, and it says very clearly that the national language is the Romanian language. Moldova’s constitution calls the state’s language “Moldovan”.
But there is a decision by the Constitution Court of Moldova saying that the Declaration of Independence of Moldova is above, legally superior to, the constitution of Moldova. To smooth those differences they adopted another law in Moldova affirming that the only official language in Moldova is Romanian. So even if any leader of Moldova says that the country’s language is Moldovan, it will remain, officially, the Romanian language, which is strongly backed by the law and can’t simply be dislodged.
KK: But let’s assume it happens. Were there to be a leader determined to assuage and assure the Prinestrovian people, and were that leader to change the name of the language, would that satisfy you?
VK: You know, it’s not only the language that defines the future or the coexistence of these two groups. The people are the main decisionmaker. And here we have, not Moldovan or Romanian, but the Pridnestrovian people. So if the Moldovan leadership adopts Moldovan as the language, it would be regarded as their own internal affair, their own business. It will divide Moldova. And if it happens, if Moldova is divided into “Moldovan” and “Romanian” peoples, it would be a good ground for conflict, because a big part of people living in Moldova regard themselves as Romanians.
And this kind of declaration on language would be quite dangerous for the stability of Moldova, and we would look at any such declaration very carefully, because language has always been a way to conflict. We would like to see our neighbour without internal conflicts. We would like to see stability there.
KK: Bosnia, where there are three major ethnicities, has devised the most complex political system to maintain peace. You claim that that there are 72 ethnicities living in this small land. But are they all treated equally, and do they really get on?
VK: I can explain why it is so in the former Yugoslavia and why we are the way we are. After the disintegration on the Soviet Union, the Pridnestrovian people chose a polyethnic, multinational vector of development. Moldova chose a mono-national path. They just declared one ethnic group as the dominant group.
Look carefully. In countries where the leaders chose a mono-national path, they had conflicts. We haven’t had any interethnic conflicts within our territory. Moreover, if we take all the history of this region, starting from the period of the Russian Empress Elizabeth, we haven’t had any interethnic conflicts on this territory, ever.
In fact, this is one of the greatest achievements of Pridnestrovie. Russians and Ukrainians live in peace here. Since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we received about 230,000 refugees from Ukraine. More than 45,000 of them have settled here permanently. We have never had any serious problems with the refugees coming from Ukraine, and we will never have those problems. Perhaps we are the only country in the world that has all the channels on our televisions – the Ukrainian channels and the Russian channels. You can watch Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy at the same time on our TV. And it’s up to people to make their choice.
KK: With regard to the war in Ukraine, there were reports earlier this year that you were going to secede from Moldova, declare your independence, and demand international recognition. Moldova branded it a “psychological operation” by Russia. Did you ever really declare your independence?
VK: We are independent in fact. We don’t have to declare anything. We don’t have international recognition, but we’re striving. We wish to have that, but only by way of negotiations, excluding any kind of force and violence.
When the war in Ukraine started, there were a lot of different leaks suggesting Pridnestrovie somehow represents a danger to Ukraine. This is not correct. I give my guarantee: no harm will come from the territory of Pridnestrovie, ever, to anybody. We are not aggressors. No war will start from the territory of Pridnestrovie against Ukraine or Moldova. I am sure that Moldovan leaders do not want a war with Pridnestrovie. The negotiation process should be one step ahead of everything. All of us have to be able to negotiate to reach some compromise. It’s very easy to start a war, but it’s very difficult to stop it. Peaceful negotiation is a lot of labour, actually.
You have to be very careful about what you say, so that you are not accused by someone that you want to create trouble. I’m personally responsible for the lives of people living in Pridnestrovie. Personally. I have stated that we will only take the path of peace. And no matter the difficulties, we will continue the negotiation process. I’ve always said that if, God forbid, we have a war in Pridnestrovie, then it’s a direct way to a military conflict between NATO and Russia, which would lead to a nuclear war. If there is a war in Pridnestrovie, it will bring the world closer to the apocalypse. We should not allow that to happen.
KK: Even though you are saying that you will never start a war, do your fear that your territory may be used to start a war v or to escalate the war that is already in action next door in Ukraine? Let’s not forget: there is a large Soviet-era weapons stockpile within your country. Do you ever see this territory being misused by Russia?
VK: I assure you, I totally exclude this possibility. It’s not possible to use our territory for such ends. Russia, for example, has a mandate for a peacekeeping mission here. They carry out special functions within this peacekeeping operation. According to this mandate, Russia has to defend the population people living here. As long as there is no aggression against the people of Pridnestrovie, there will be no response. This is why I can say that Russia does not threaten anyone by using, in any way, the territory of Pridnestrovie.
As for the huge ammunition depot in our country – yes, I agree, you are correct. It’s a big problem. It’s a huge threat. But we have taken a position with Russia that we want the disposal of the armaments and ammunitions which are kept in those depots.
KK: So you see the existence of that weapons depot as a problem that you wish to eliminate?
VK: Yes. This huge depot of ammunition, especially given the conditions we have today, is dangerous. Thank God, everybody seems to understand this. My wish – my hope – is that, sooner or later, the war between Russia and Ukraine will end. And then we have to decide the fate of that weapons warehouse. It will be a decision taken by Russia, Moldova, and Pridnestrovie.
The role of Pridnestrovie in this process would be ecological, a technical role, focused on what to do with this ammunition, either to remove it from our land or to destroy or dispose of it right here. In 2019, I met the (now former) Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and raised this issue. It was our common view that this arsenal should be reduced. Reduction was our common idea. But then, of course, there was the pandemic, followed by the war in Ukraine.
KK: How do you view the conflict in Ukraine? You are a victim of aggression yourself, as you’ve stated, and you were very generous in taking in the refugees from the war. How do you think it started and how does it end?
VK: Refugees are not our biggest problem. We have logistical problems. One of the biggest is that the border with Ukraine is closed. As a result, economic ties and ties between people and relatives have been severed. I think that the war between Russia and Ukraine is a catastrophe. It perhaps could have been prevented, but that did not happen, unfortunately. The most important thing is peace, and you cannot avoid peace. It will happen sooner or later. Unfortunately, many people die. Cities are destroyed, even states and countries are destroyed, in the process.
KK: One of the things that is said about Pakistan is that, while most countries have an army, Pakistan’s army has a country. Your country reminds me of that saying because it is said to be owned by one company, Sheriff. The whole infrastructure of the state is thought to exist to support that company.
VK: It is, again, one of those stereotypes about Pridnestrovie. I am sure that in India there are lots of very rich people who also own many things. And the same is true in Britain. It’s not a bad thing. Sheriff is the biggest investor in Pridnestrovie, the biggest taxpayer.
Yes, Sheriff owns a football club, it owns a lot of trading companies. But all of this only a small part of the overall Pridnestrovian enterprise. Sheriff actually brought around 40 new production sites and production technologies here. Sheriff invests its revenues into Pridnestrovie. Is this bad? There are many rich people who spend their money buying foreign football clubs. This company, Sheriff, invested money into creating a football team in their own country.
I support competition in economy. What we’re building is a socially oriented market economy. We don’t want any wild capitalism here. We don’t think that socialism is possible anymore, either. Sheriff, therefore, is playing according to the rules of the state. Their business must be socially oriented. We are looking very carefully at this.
KK: Are Sheriff subordinate to the state? They’re not more powerful than the state?
VK: There is nothing stronger than the state in Pridnestrovie, and nothing can be stronger. Otherwise, it will not be a state.
KK: You are accused of being a hub for smuggling. You know this, surely. You might say it’s another stereotype. But to the outside world, PMR looks like a strange place which exists to facilitate smuggling.
VK: This is ridiculous. We don’t have any access to the seashore. On one side is Moldova. On the other side is Ukraine. How can you promote smuggling? How is it physically possible? We have a state budget in Pridnestrovie amounting to around US $450 million. That’s less than half the budget of Manchester United. I am speaking of it in the sense of different financial possibilities, right?
You better ask those people who make the allegation that Pridnestrovie is a smuggling blackhole. How can you smuggle, physically, anything to and from Pridnestrovie? Before the war, there was a European border mission which looked at any movement across our borders with a magnifying glass and controlled everything that moved across our frontiers. Now, of course, the borders are not closed.
KK: Let’s talk about political freedoms. The PMR is effectively a one party state, isn’t it?
VK: We have one leading party, which is called Obnovlenie, or Renewal, but other parties are allowed. We have a lot of other parties, maybe smaller, but they do exist. We have a lot of public organisations, public movements, NGOs, and so on. Nothing is banned. The parliament of Pridnestrovie is not elected according to the party lists. People are elected individually here, according to their merits and so on, by the local population. So there’s no party competition.
Our society is not divided along the lines of different parties. If you go out into the street and ask people which party they belong to or which party they support, they will not understand you, and they will understand that you are a foreigner, that you don’t understand what’s going on here. Here, when people are elected, the number one quality [voters look for] is the quality of being a leader. We are a small country, and our parliament consists of only 33 deputies. And people elect them according to their personality and what they can do, and not by the party to which they belong. I believe this is more reliable system
KK: What about the accusations by human rights organisations that opposition members are kidnapped, disappeared, killed? There was one rather notorious case of an opposition leader who was found murdered last year.
VK: We don’t kill any opposition [leaders]. It’s lies. If a person could be killed as a result of some criminal showdown or criminal conflicts between different criminal groups, then, yes, unfortunately, people are murdered here in Pridnestrovie. We certainly have criminal cases or murders. Annually we have, on average, around seventeen or eighteen criminal cases of murder. And the persons who commit these killings are put into prison after going to court, in accordance with our judicial system.
I support the existence of an opposition. It’s interesting to talk to them. But what is the difference between “opposition” and “enemies of Pridnestrovie”?
In India, there is also an opposition. And the opposition leader says, Okay, I’m an opposition leader, but I wish prosperity to my country, independence, further good development. I don’t wish my country to be destroyed in any way. That’s a good thing.
But imagine if an opposition leader in India says, Okay, I support division of India into separate states. Can this person be regarded as just an “opposition leader”? We don’t actually have opposition leaders who say, I support the further development of Pridnestrovie and I want Pridnestrovie to be preserved as an independent country. We don’t have such opposition leaders.
But we do have people who call on other people to kill other citizens of Pridnestrovie because they belong this or that ethnic group. We have people who commit extremist or terrorist acts. There are people who wish the destruction of the Pridnestrovian statehood and independence. These people break, as a result, the Constitution. They should not be regarded as the opposition. In any state, such people are called criminals, and the criminal code is applied to them. If tomorrow there is a leader of opposition who wants the independence of Pridnestrovie, I will talk to him provided he represents a group of people. We don’t see any problem in the existence of an opposition.
KK: You obviously don’t want them murdered over differences of opinion. In March [of last year], the leader of the Communist Party was murdered. Has there been any resolution to that?
VK: He was murdered in July. His house was broken into, and during this burglary, he was killed. In order for this case to be justly investigated, we sent all the evidence to Moldova. Based on this evidence, they conduct their own investigation into the murder. My hope is that those people who committed that murder will be punished. Moreover, we allowed the representatives of the Interior Ministry of Moldova to come and inspect the crime scene. All the DNA evidence was also sent to Moldova. So if they detain a person who matches this DNA, he will be sent to us, and then we will be able to clarify the real motives of that crime. Mr Oleg Khorzhan, the Communist leader that you refer to, he received only 3 per cent of the vote in the election. Moldova has a good chance to solve this case, because we have lots of reasons to believe that those people who killed or murdered Mr Khorzhan, they came from Moldova.
Kapil Komireddi is the author of Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India, which was recently published in a revised and updated paperback edition by Hurst. X.com/kapskom