“It’s the reality we’re seeing, the surreal reality. That’s what really worries a lot of people,” said Olena Khorenjenko, 33, a Ukrainian refugee who fled to Moldova and is familiar with Transnistria. “These are our neighbours – not some faraway people.”

Transnistria is awash with Soviet symbols. Its flag is emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, a huge statue of Lenin looms over the centre of its main city Tiraspol and a bust of the Bolshevik leader sits outside the town hall, or House of Soviets.

Transnistria gets its name from being on the east side of the Dniester River, and it occupies a long, narrow slice of land alongside Ukraine.

On Monday night, explosions struck the headquarters of Transnistria security forces, who are paid by Russia. More explosions Tuesday destroyed transmission towers used for Russian broadcasts. Moldovan officials said the Monday explosions were caused by grenade launchers.

The explosions came days after a senior Russian commander claimed Russian speakers in Moldova were being oppressed- the same argument used by Russia to justify its invasion of Ukraine.

The building hit by explosions was empty because it was a public holiday, although Transnistrian media reported that some windows in surrounding homes were broken by the blast.

Moldovan officials said the attacks were designed “to create pretexts for tensioning the security situation” in the disputed area.

Ukraine’s military late Tuesday warned that Russian troops in Transnistria “have been put on full combat readiness”. In addition, the security forces of the Moldovan separatists had also been put on heightened readiness, it said.

Like many Ukrainians, Khorenjenko worries that Russia will annex Transnistria the way it did the Crimea or the Donbas regions.

Few Moldovans visit the area, and many treat it with deep suspicion due to its Russian ties. The Russian soldiers remain there primarily to guard the ammunition depot, left behind as the Soviet army withdrew from Europe at the end of World War II, and to protect a polluting steel foundry that belches smoke over the area.

Transnistria broke away from Moldova during the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and the region is home to people who are linked almost equally to Russia, Romania and Moldova.

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Although the United Nations doesn’t recognise Transnistria as its own country, about 500,000 people live there, and the territory has its own money and an official name: the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic.

Transnistrians are in some ways a throwback to the idea of the Soviet Union, said Keith Harrington, an Irish scholar who studies the area: “They try to hold onto the Soviet idea that you have an ethnic identity but that you identify with the region as well.”

Harrington, who has visited Transnistria regularly, said most visitors wouldn’t notice a significant difference from being in Moldova, as many of the “Russian” border guards and soldiers were born locally, rather than transferred in from Russia, the way the Soviet Union handled things.

“Most of those troops are people who are born in Transnistria and have Russian citizenship. They’re not really Russian troops,” Harrington said. “And from what I’ve heard, there’s no appetite for those armed forces to get involved in the Ukraine conflict.”

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Many Moldovans today view Transnistria with a concern that borders on outright fear, although they’re reluctant to discuss those views publicly, in part because they worry Russian intelligence agents might target them, especially if President Vladimir Putin decided to attack Moldova. While visiting the area, a USA TODAY reporter spoke with more than a dozen Moldovan professionals, translators, non-profit leaders and others familiar with Transnistria.

Moldovan officials have long treated Transnistria with caution over fears Russia could invade or occupy it like it has in Ukraine or Crimea or Donetsk.

Last week, a Russian general suggested that Moscow may continue its military advance across southern Ukraine to reach Transnistria, though no other officials have publicly endorsed that goal.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Moldovan President Maia Sandu reiterated her long-standing commitment to a peaceful relationship with Transnistria. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Sandu formally requested membership in the European Union, which could eventually bring the small country military protection from other EU members if requested.

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Philip Remler, a former US State Department official who worked extensively in Eastern Europe, Russia and Moldova, said Russia has a long track record of encouraging breakaway areas, from Transnistria to Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Crimea.

Other experts said they see Russia’s involvement in Transnistria as largely driven by a desire to frustrate Europe.

“There’s a Russian playbook in these cases – Moscow encouraged separatism as a weapon, and protected the separatists, and while refusing to recognise them as states, gave them some legitimacy as political entities in their own right,” said Remler, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Remler said Russia has never seemed particularly serious in its interest in Transnistria, “and it’s an interest that, I believe, the Transnistrians would rather do without”.

Transnistria has also long been seen as a smugglers’ haven, with the Black Sea port of Odesa, across the border in Ukraine, acting as a prime gateway for contraband cigarettes, alcohol and other merchandise.

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The Sheriff group, a huge holding founded by two former Soviet police officers, has a stranglehold on the territory, where it owns supermarkets, gas stations, a cognac distillery and a beluga caviar farm.

In 2015, the RISE Moldova investigative news group reported that a third of Transnistria’s budget wound up in Sheriff’s coffers.

The Sheriff group also owns FC Sheriff, the upstarts in this year’s Champions League, who caused one of the biggest upsets in the history of the competition when they beat Real Madrid 2-1 in a home game in Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium in September.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, dpa and Bloomberg