Thousands of Romanians waiting in their cars to pick up refugees at the border

I think that there is a possibility that Russia's current plans in Ukraine either already include, or will extend to, taking over Transnistria.

At this rate, they'd be lucky if they can hold on to DNR/LNR, if not Crimea tbh. Russian ground forces are getting fucked. They could start indiscriminately bombing cities, but that would look really bad for the Russian government and be cause for actual foreign intervention.

They will not use nukes. There are plenty of people in between them and Putin who understand they're only a last resort for defense.

And inb4 "they're just testing waters with conscripts". Nobody does that. Russian vehicles rolled in on Ukrainian roads without a single roadblock. Now they're starting to put up hedgehogs and are generally better aware, and also getting more western weapons. A second wave would meet the same, or worse, fate.

The Russian army is severely underequipped and underfunded. All they have is nukes. And tbh, I'm not even sure half of those work, which might explain their fear of NATO at the border.

With any luck, this will spark a reunification effort between Moldova and Romania and have Russia so humiliated they won't try it again for decades.

Transnistria, btw, is already de facto Russian. They won't go any further with it, because that would be a waste of money. They could try to take Moldova if their Ukraine invasion fails, but I think the chances are pretty low after such a massive failure.

Not to mention that sadly, all it would take to turn the next election pro-Russian is a few good donations and/or threats. 80% of Moldova's energy supply comes from one Transnistrian power plant, and people (30% Russian plus the pro-Russian Gagauz) are pissed about the energy price increases, blaming the government, and brainwashed by whatever Russian media they're consuming.

We'll see how this comment ages.