>>214236057
Inertia mostly, plus Transnistria is doing really poorly rn (literally subsidised by the EU because the russian gas got cut off)
There was a story a while back where the Ukrainian army allegedly offered to just take transnistria out in one swoop, but the Moldovan side declined.
Indecision, inaction whatever you call it.
Honestly Moldova and Ukraine should just do a landswap for it. The local russians aren't really russians per se, just like how people in odessa speak russian but are ukrainian. Not a lot of transplants afaik.
Transnistria for southern bukovina + the bit of budjak romania used to have prior to gaining dobruja in the 19th century seems like a fair trade. But I doubt they'd take them up on it because ukrainians wont be in the mood to give anything up. Even if they get something in exchange.