Bessarabia (/ˌbɛsəˈreɪbiə/; Gagauz: Besarabiya; Romanian: Basarabia; Russian: Бессарабия,

Bessarabiya; Turkish: Besarabya; Ukrainian: Бессара́бія, Bessarabiya; Bulgarian: Бесарабия,

Besarabiya) is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east
and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova,
with the Ukrainian Budjak region covering the southern coastal region and part of the Ukrainian
Chernivtsi Oblast covering a small area in the north.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812), and the ensuing Peace of Bucharest,
the eastern parts of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal, along with some areas
formerly under direct Ottoman rule, were ceded to Imperial Russia. The acquisition was among
the Empire's last territorial acquisitions in Europe. The newly acquired territories were
organised as the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, adopting a name previously
used for the southern plains between the Dniester and the Danube rivers. Following the
Crimean War, in 1856, the southern areas of Bessarabia were returned to Moldavian rule;
Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878, when Romania, the result of
Moldavia's union with Wallachia, was pressured into exchanging those territories for the
Dobruja.

In 1917, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the area constituted itself as the Moldavian
Democratic Republic, an autonomous republic part of a proposed federative Russian state.
Bolshevik agitation in late 1917 and early 1918 resulted in the intervention of the Romanian
Army, ostensibly to pacify the region. Soon after, the parliamentary assembly declared
independence, and then union with the Kingdom of Romania.[1] However, the legality of these
acts was disputed, most prominently by the Soviet Union, which regarded the area as a
territory occupied by Romania.

In 1940, after securing the assent of Nazi Germany through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the
Soviet Union pressured Romania, under threat of war,[2] into withdrawing from Bessarabia,
allowing the Red Army to enter and the Soviet Union to annex the region. The area was
formally integrated into the Soviet Union: the core joined parts of the Moldavian ASSR to form
the Moldavian SSR, while territories inhabited by Slavic majorities in the north and the south of
Bessarabia were transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. Axis-aligned Romania recaptured the region
in 1941 with the success of Operation München during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union,
but lost it in 1944 as the tide of war turned. In 1947, the Soviet-Romanian border along the Prut
was internationally recognised by the Paris Treaty that ended World War II.

During the process of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Moldavian and Ukrainian SSRs
proclaimed their independence in 1991, becoming the modern states of Moldova and Ukraine
while preserving the existing partition of Bessarabia. Following a short war in the early 1990s,
the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic was proclaimed in the Transnistria, extending its
authority also over the municipality of Bender on the right bank of Dniester river. Part of the
Gagauz-inhabited areas in southern Bessarabia was organised in5][36]