1992 – War that cannot be forgotten // “I Came to Defend My Village.”; story of policeman from east Moldova village

Ilie Ilievici was 27 years old when he returned home to Moldova. He had served in the Soviet army in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, and refused to stay there despite tempting offers. He specialized in strategic missiles and communications. He had just managed to get a job in Chisinau, at the Police Commissariat. On 14 March 1992, the hiring order was issued, he received his ID card and decided to come to his native village, Pohrebea.

“I came from Chișinău to defend my village,” the veteran recalls, still carrying the same outrage in his eyes today.





“People were working on the outskirts of the village, at a cattle farm. The separatists had set up a checkpoint and would not allow them to work. Of course, I felt outraged – how could someone have the right to control me?” he remembers, noting that this situation continued until the bloody separatist attack on 14 March 1992 at the Canned Food Factory in Cosnita.





A hot period had begun. Each day was lived, as if it were the last. He risked his life, and bullets whistled past him. At one point, they were forced to retreat after more colleagues were wounded by mines. The road leading to the separatists’ line had been mined.

“On 7 April, the commander called me and told me that we would carry out a demining mission. Being from these places, I knew every path very well. We went to a place where we had to clear a passage along the Dniester. Four guys from Cosnita came and others from our platoon – there were nine of us in all. We went along the road I knew. After just a few steps I found the first mine, intuitively. We removed five or six mines and managed to clear a path about a meter and a half wide. We advanced some 15–20 meters and stopped at an edge. The colleagues went ahead to look for the mines. After two or three hours they came back with two sacks full of mines. There were so many that we couldn’t possibly remove them all by morning,” Ilie Ilievici says.







The area behind the village of Pohrebea, towards Lunca, Dubasari, was mined. That was where the fighting took place. The road linked the two front lines.

“There is a deep ravine there, with large, dense trees, and that road was the only way through. The road was mined – it was the road between our line and theirs. An attack was being prepared. The roads had to be checked, and we went on a reconnaissance and demining mission. I was first, the boys were behind me. It was night, we could barely see anything. One of the boys took half a step back and stepped on a mine – he was the sapper from Chișinău. Instinctively, I put out my hand and a fragment hit me in the face and in the hand. I was wounded in the hand and face. My colleague fell on his back. Another boy stepped on another mine. We gave each other first aid and managed to get out of there. That was when I lost an eye,” the veteran recounts.





The mission of 7 April put an end to police officer Ilie Ilievici’s participation at the front. A long period of treatment and rehabilitation followed. Although doctors declared him a war invalid, he continued to work in the Police. His colleagues supported him with a petition to the Interior Ministry and he worked in the system for another two years. For his heroism during the Transnistria War, Sergeant Ilie Ilievici was decorated with the Stefan cel Mare Order.

Since then, he has remained in his native village, Pohrebea, guarding its peace and quiet all these years. His two children started their own families, continuing a life marked by the memory of the war.

“My daughter works at a power engineering design company registered in Moldova. She is married to a man from Dubasari. My son-in-law worked as a policeman in Cosnita,” says the veteran.





After witnessing the war and numerous governments alternating in Chișinău and Tiraspol, the veteran says that any decision regarding the country’s future must be carefully thought out. In his opinion, Moldova should join the European Union only together with the Transnistrian region.

“On 7 April 2009, when the violent protests took place in Chisinau, my son was there, talking about the need for change in the country. Yes, we want change, but it must be carefully thought through. Accession to the EU must happen, but even here we must think carefully. They say that Transnistria should join later. How so? What will the people from Parata, from Dorotcaia do? Will they put the border here, on the Dniester? People will be left neither here nor there. Integration with Russia will not happen – we all understand this today,” he says.

Twenty-five years after the last demining mission in the Pohrebea area, the community remembers how long the road to safety was. Between 5 May and 12 August 2000, 49 soldiers of the National Army took part in operations to clear the territory of explosives, under the command of Brigadier General Vitalie Stoian. According to official data, over 300 explosive objects were detected and neutralized, including antipersonnel mines – a constant danger for the locals.

For eight years, people lived in fear with every step they took. Many avoided working their fields, going to orchards or vineyards. Every blast caused panic, and each day was a silent confrontation with the risks left behind by the conflict.





 Could the Transnistria War of 1992 have been avoided? “I don’t think so,” says Mihai Rotari, former policeman at the Dubasari Commissariat, in an exclusive interview with the State Information Agency Moldpres. “Tensions had begun much earlier,” the veteran recalls about the saddest period of his life, lived at a beautiful age: he was only 31. “We never really left the territory of the war,” continued Mihai Rotari, his brow finally relaxing.