Two unprecedented visits by Russian senior state officials have been made over the past few weeks in Tiraspol. On 12 April, Transnistria was visited by Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov, and on 16–17 April by the deputy prime minister and special presidential envoy, Dmitry Rogozin.
In turn, on 18 April in Vienna, in the framework of the international negotiating format for the Transnstrian conflict, two documents were signed, which defined the principles and the agenda for substantive negotiations (the 5+2 format includes Chisinau and Tiraspol as parties to the conflict, Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE as the mediators and – since 2005 – the European Union and the United States as observers).