Hank Baker
TIRASPOL, Transnistria—Victor Plescanov, a 59-year-old gravedigger from Tiraspol—the capital of the Russian-backed breakaway region of Transnistria in Moldova—has never shied away from bold public expressions of support for Ukraine’s independence.
A week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Plescanov was in a fabrics store running an errand. When he noticed only Transnistrian and Russian flags at the store, he boldly asked the local who worked there for fabrics to make a Ukrainian flag. At home, he hung the self-made flag outside their apartment, a bold gesture given their neighbors were members of the Transnistria proxy for the FSB, Russia’s federal security agency.
Plescanov, who lived with his wife and teenage son at the time, knew such gestures came with risks. In a region where Russian influence is predominant and any opposition narrative is suppressed, Victor’s actions—like questioning the absence of a Ukrainian flag, and then hanging one outside his apartment—were viewed as dissent. What he couldn’t have known was that his actions that day would ultimately lead to a lengthy prison sentence—and force his wife, Oxana Lopusnea, and their 14-year-old, into a life of fear.