One More Thing To Piss Off Putin.

As the average American what or where Moldova is and you'll get looked at like you're joking or at best a shrug of the shoulders. Rest assured Putin knows and he's not happy about the latest goings on.

Before World War One Romania was know as Rumania and was not much larger than its southern neighbor Bulgaria. After the war however it grew to one of the largest countries in Europe, taking in swaths of the former Austria-Hungary known as Transylvania, a small slice of northeastern Bulgaria and a large section of the former Russian Empire extending eastward almost to the port city of Odessa. At that time it was known as Bessarabia. All these area contained large majorities of Romanians.

When Stalin signed the nonaggression pact with the Nazis part of the secret protocols it contained was German aquessience to the Soviets seizing the Baltic states and Bessarabia from Romania. The southern sections where their were large numbers of Ukrainians be came part of the Ukrainian S.S.R.  The rest became know as the Moldovan A.S.S.R. a nominally autonomous sub state of the Soviet Empire that was in fact tightly controlled by Moscow.

After the collapse Moldova quickly joined what became known as "The flight of the Sovereigns". Today many Moldovans have become increasingly weary of governmental inefficiency, corruption and its inability to control Russian meddling along its northern frontier.  Accordingly there has been a growing number protest rallies calling for reintegration into Romania. The reason it had not happened earlier is of course that even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Romania was still in the grip of the evil Chouchescu family. Apparently some Moldovans now want reunification and the NATO membership that would come with it.

The prospect of more NATO forces right on another border of Ukraine must have Putin pissed off if not loosing sleep.  Appears Russians aren't the only chess players in Europe. check to you Vladie boy!