Dress Rehearsal : How Transnistria Became Russia’s Roadmap for Hybrid Wars in Ukraine and Beyond

This book explores life in Transnistria, a Russian-backed breakaway region between Moldova and Ukraine. Journalist Larisa Kalik blends memoir and reportage to reveal how this frozen conflict shapes identity, daily life, and Russia’s strategies for hybrid warfare in Ukraine and beyond.

In the shadow of Europe’s borders lies Transnistria—an unrecognized sliver of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine. For over three decades, it has existed in political limbo: cut off from the world, sustained by Moscow, and ruled by an authoritarian elite. Part time capsule, part laboratory for Russian influence, it is one of the longest-running “frozen conflicts” in the post-Soviet space—and a blueprint for Russia’s future wars. Blending personal memoir, first-hand interviews, and investigative reporting, journalist Larisa Kalik pulls back the curtain on daily life inside this enigmatic pseudo-state. She traces the roots of Transnistria’s Russian-backed separatism, the war that cemented its “independence,” and the ways its experience has shaped the Kremlin’s playbook for hybrid warfare in Ukraine and beyond. This is not just a story of geopolitics, but of people navigating a place where borders are fluid, identity is contested, and history refuses to end. From the streets of Tiraspol to the front lines of Ukraine, Kalik—herself a native of Transnistria forced into exile to Ukraine—offers an unflinching account of life under unrecognized rule, and a vivid portrait of how unresolved conflicts can define a region’s fate for generations.