Rolling street demonstrations are threatening to destabilize another fragile post-Soviet state. But in this case, it’s not pro-Western protesters pushing back against what they see as an authoritarian drift by their government, but pro-Russian demonstrators complaining about deteriorating living standards – and, also, creeping authoritarianism.

Crowds are surging through the streets of Chisinau, the capital city of tiny Moldova, the poorest country in Europe. But fallout from the war in next-door Ukraine has made economic prospects even worse and aggravated social tensions.

What makes Moldova’s situation especially dangerous is the presence next to its border with Ukraine of a Russian-speaking statelet, Transnistria, which broke away from Moldova after a brief war in 1992 and has maintained its unrecognized independence with Russian support ever since. It still hosts an occupying Russian army of about 1,500 troops, as well as an enormous Soviet-era ammunition depot near the town of Cobasna, with about 20,000 tons of Soviet-standard weaponry that is desperately needed by both sides in the nearby conflict.