Bessarabia

Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia; Russian: Бессарабия Bessarabiya, Ukrainian: Бессарабія Bessarabiya) is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812, and ensuing Peace of Bucharest, the eastern portion of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, was ceded to Imperial Russia and designated "Bessarabia". While this eastern part became the Governorate of Bessarabia, the western part of Moldavia united, in 1859, with Wallachia in what would become the Kingdom of Romania. For a short period between 1856 and 1878, two of the nine traditional counties of Bessarabia were also part of Moldavia and then Romania.

Three months after declaring its independence from Russia, in 1918, as the Moldavian Democratic Republic (shortly before the end of World War I); it united with the Kingdom of Romania. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the USSR in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. Subsequently, Romania joined the Axis Powers and recaptured it in 1941 and lost it again in 1944. In 1947, the Soviet-Romanian border set along the Prut River was internationally recognised by the Paris Treaty that ended World War II. The core part of Bessarabia was joined with parts of the Moldavian ASSR (Transnistria) to form the Moldavian SSR. At the same time, smaller parts of Bessarabia, in the south (two traditional counties; Budjak) and north (half of one county), were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR.

During the process of dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian SSR declared itself sovereign (23 June 1990) and declared independence from the USSR on 27 August 1991, becoming the Republic of Moldova. The areas allotted to the Ukrainian SSR in 1940 became part of the new independent Ukraine since 1991, while the area roughly corresponding to Transnistria became the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic separate from the government of the Republic of Moldova.