“Everyone is welcome, except journalists,” announces the guide as her group have their passports checked on entering Transnistria, a diminutive pro-Russian breakaway enclave that belongs in international law to Moldova. Russian soldiers stand on one side of the road, Moldovans on the other. It is peaceful enough. But ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Transnistrians’ fears that their statelet might become a new front in that war have been very real.