The tiny statelet of Transnistria is squeezed on all sides

In the centre of Tiraspol, the region’s capital, the flags of two breakaway chunks of Georgia, the only statelets to recognise Transnistria’s independence, fly alongside its own one. Russia, whose flag flutters widely elsewhere, helped prise Transnistria from Moldova in the early 1990s. Everyone assumes that its fate depends on whether Ukraine stands or falls.