In 2003–2005, democratic revolutions overthrew the Georgian, Ukrainian, and Kyrgyz post-Soviet authoritarian regimes. However, disillusioned citizens witness today their new leaders creating a Bonapartist regime, entering into open conflict with former revolutionary allies or being forced to accept cohabitation with leaders of the previous regime. This article argues that despite internationally acclaimed civic mobilisation, civil society's weakness seriously affected the three revolutionary processes. These were in fact initiated, led, controlled, and finally subordinated by former members of the authoritarian regimes' political elite. Finally, the supposedly democratic revolutions proved to be little more than a limited rotation of ruling elites within undemocratic political systems.

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In recent years, increased European Union interest in its eastern “neighborhood” has been hailed as a possible solution of the Transnistrian frozen conflict. The fall of the communist authoritarian regime of Chişinău and the internal crisis of the Smirnov regime in Tiraspol also modified the conditions of the nineteen-year conflict. However, the European involvement in Moldova is perceived by the Kremlin as an intrusion in its own domaine réservé. Moreover, the 2008 war in South Ossetia illustrates Russia’s return to the early 1990s policy of overt instrumentalization of the post-Soviet frozen conflicts. This volatile situation is analyzed in order to predict the future evolution of the Transnistrian conflict in the larger context of the developing regional rivalry between Brussels and Moscow.