Romania is a member of NATO, and they will not like this one bit.
Yeah, but Transnistria is legally a part of Moldova which isn't a NATO member country. Moldova and Romania have strong ties, obviously.
Transnistria is a historical fiction; a region carved out of Western Ukraine by the Germans in 1941 and thrown to the Romanians as a sop for Ribbentrop’s Vienna Award of Transylvania to Hungary. All the Romanians had to do was fight alongside the Germans to get it. Although many Romanians wondered how the fight for Transnistria took them all the way to the Don River around Stalingrad.
I find no historical reference to “Transnistria” as a political entity that predates 1940.
True, but what can they do about it? Russia knows Obama will not do a damn thing of any consequence. NATO won’t if Obama won’t. Romania should then annex Moldova (if the people there want it) and hope the Russians accept that.