MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax-AVN) - The supply logistics of Russia's Armed Forces contingent, including Russian peacekeepers serving in the breakaway province of Transdniestria, will be maintained under any circumstances and despite Ukraine's decision to terminate all military cooperation agreements with Russia, Gen. Yury Yakubov, coordinator of the Russian Defense Ministry's General Inspectorate, told Interfax-AVN on Friday.
"Now that Ukraine has severed all military-technological cooperation agreements with Russia, including cargo transit via Ukrainian territory, the Defense Ministry has no other choice but to provide Russian units with all necessary supplies by air, with the help of military-transport airplanes," he said.
"In any case, the Defense Ministry and the General Staff will find ways to send supplies to Russian contingents, including peacekeepers," Yakubov said.
"Certainly, this situation will seriously complicate the supply logistics of our group in Transdniestria. But I am sure that a solution will be found. We will not leave our peacekeepers on a 'starvation diet'," the general said.
Yakubov also fears that the ban on Russian cargo transit passage to Transdniestria via Ukraine may further escalate tensions in this region.
"It is known that the authorities of Moldova have said more than once that the peacekeeping mission in Transdniestria is ineffective and has suggested changing the mission's format and making it civilian. Ukraine's ban on transit passage to Transdniestria may serve as a pretext for changing the peacekeeping format in Transdniestria or abolishing it altogether," Yakubov said.
A security area on the banks of the Dniestr River was established in accordance with an agreement concluded by Moldova and Russia on June 21, 1992 in order to bring the armed conflict in Transdniestia to an end. This security area is currently controlled by a trilateral peacekeeping force, formed by Moldova, Russia and Transdniestria, reporting to the Joint Military Command.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada terminated five agreements between the Ukrainian and Russian governments concerning military cooperation between the two countries.
In particular, the Rada has terminated the agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian governments on cooperation in the military sector that had been signed in Sochi on November 25, 1995 and ratified by the Ukrainian parliament on January 10, 2002.
The Rada also terminated an agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian governments on the transit passage of Russian military units temporarily stationed in Moldova via Ukrainian territory.
Furthermore, the Rada terminated agreements between the Ukrainian and Russian governments on the organization of military inter-state transportation and related payments, on military intelligence cooperation and on mutual protection of classified information.