| Summary/Abstract |
IN JUNE 2017, it was 25 years since the tragedy in Bendery, a Moldovan city whose population had rejected the plans of Chisinau nationalists to prohibit them from using Russian at work and in everyday life and from teaching Russian to their children. Attempts to reach a compromise on the "right to use one's own language" had failed. Moldova split apart and the conflict turned into an armed confrontation. On March 2, 1992, Moldovan troops, using armored vehicles and artillery fire and supported by Romanian volunteers, launched a full-scale military operation against Transnistria (Pridnestrovie). On June 19, 1992, almost 700 civilians lost their lives as a result of a massive artillery strike on the city of Bendery; more than 1300 people were wounded, and 100 thousand became refugees. The city was saved from destruction by the arrival of the Russian 14th Army. At a meeting in Moscow on July 21, 1992, the presidents of Russia and the Republic of Moldova, in the presence of the president of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), signed an Agreement on the Principles of a Peaceful Settlement of the Armed Conflict in the Pridnestrovian Region of the Republic of Moldova.
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