According to the ministry, Chisinau's intentions were to take control of all foreign economic activities of the breakaway Moldovan region, undermine the bases of the regional budget formation and cause a social crisis.
The ministry said the new regulations disrupted transit trade and transport links via Transdnestr, inflicting losses on Ukraine, Moldova and southeast Europe.
Russia's State Duma and the Foreign Ministry said earlier that the Ukrainian decision, made at Chisinau's request, would seriously damage the Transdnestr economy. What Chisinau and Kiev are trying to present as an effort to put the border in order "means nothing less than the imposition of economic sanctions on Transdnestr in order to force it to surrender to possible solutions to the problem that actually breach the republic's right to special status as stipulated by international agreements," the Duma statement said.
Russian parliamentarians said the decision had damaged the Transdnestr conflict settlement by fueling political tensions around the issue. They also called for Ukraine and Moldova to lift the new restrictions and launch talks immediately, as stipulated in a 1997 memorandum.
A declaration from the Moldovan parliament described the situation in the region as "dangerous" and claimed that the breakaway region is "deliberately blocking any productive steps taken by Moldova and other participants of the negotiation process aimed at finding a peaceful and final resolution to the Transdnestr conflict."
The parliament also expressed disappointment that Russia, as an important part of the negotiation process, had not responded properly.
"Some political forces in Moscow and certain Russian politicians are supporting the Tiraspol separatists, who are obsessed with the idea of breaking off Transdnestr from the Republic of Moldova," the declaration said.
The new regulations, which came into effect on March 3, were outlined in a joint communique adopted by the prime ministers of Ukraine and Moldova on December 30, 2005, and endorsed by the Ukrainian Cabinet in a March 1 decree.
Transdnestr's status has been a bone of contention since armed conflict broke out there in March 1992, when Moldova declared its independence from the Soviet Union and Transdnestr in turn proclaimed itself a republic. Russia intervened in the conflict at the Moldovan president's request, and the Russian and Moldovan presidents signed a ceasefire agreement in the presence of the leader of Transdnestr in July 1992.
In 1997, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Transdnestr signed a memorandum on the normalization of relations between Moldova and Transdnestr outlining basic principles for the settlement in the region. The memorandum stipulates a special status for Transdnestr within Moldova. Both sides pledged not to use force, but to negotiate agreements with Russia and Ukraine as guarantors with the assistance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an association of former Soviet republics.
