Despite this, many 14th Guards Army personnel were sympathetic to the creation of the PMR and therefore defected and joined Transnistrian units and participated in the fighting as part of the Armed Forces of Transnistria.

[7] Even its own commanding officer, General G. I. Yakovlev, defected to the Transnistrian side, eventually playing a role in the republic's founding and serving as a career politician.

Once he accepted the position of Chairman of the Department of Defense PMR on 3 December 1991, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov (Commander-in-Chief of the CIS Armed Forces at the time) immediately and permanently relieved him of his Russian military service.

[citation needed] On close to two weeks later, in the early hours of 3 July, Lebed ordered a massive artillery strike from the left bank of the Dniester onto a Moldovan contingent in Gerbovetskii forest (near Bender).

It is generally accepted by the Military of Moldova and the Government of Transnistria that the 14th Army played a critical role in preventing the installation of Moldovan control in the area.