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Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service

with me Matthew Pintus. With fears rising that President Vladimir Putin may attack Moldova.

I'm taking you back 30 years to the last time the former Soviet Republic found itself fighting Russian-backed forces.

I've been speaking to a journalist who came under attack himself during a war that lasted nearly two years.

We've been under the fire of snipers and my car was hit several times.

That was the moment when I felt like a rat inside me is moving.

That was very skier for.

And then suddenly started to be fired by grenades lounges.

This is Vairel Chibutaru. He's a journalist who was hired by the Moldovan government in 1990 to show the fighting in his country to the world's press.

Over the last few weeks, hundreds of people have been

vicious enough but by night there's been shelling which is more often than not

inaccurate and indiscriminate eventually as many as 2,000 people died in a battle for a disputed region called Transnistria.

My task at that moment was to show the people what is worth about.

So of course the people have been bonded just beside me.

I had my pistol but very rare when I was carrying them even during my missions.

Like many Moldovans, Vairel Chibutaru had wanted to break away from the Soviet Union when it began

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