Yes. Before becoming part of the Russian empire, history shows that the biggest share of the population in that region were Moldovans and the second-biggest were Ukrainians. You know that Moldova belongs to the, let's say, Latin world. We speak a language that makes us part of the Romance group of languages. We have been part of la Francophonie since 1997. Yes, we are different from the Slavic world, yet the population has so peacefully coexisted on the territory of Moldova. We are a very multicultural society.
I believe that, in 1792, when the sixth Russian-Turkish war broke, there was an agreement that part of the territory—which, at that time, was called Bessarabia, and part of which today is Transnistria—was part of Ukraine. This explains why the second-largest ethnic group is Ukrainians. They peacefully coexist today, but there were always more, let's say, feelings that that part belonged to the Slavic world.
In 1924, this territory was proclaimed autonomous, as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, so they did have an autonomous status. It was not part of Ukraine any longer. It was largely autonomous within the Soviet Republic, so the feelings still persist that they are not supporting everything relating to our affinities with the Romanian culture.