Moscow-backed enclave in Moldova feels pain from lack of Russian gas
- Transdniestria hit hard by severing of gas route
- Industry shut down, people left without heat and hot water
- Residents queue to buy electric stoves and heaters
- Moldova says Russia is creating security crisis
The severing of one of Russia's last gas export routes to Europe is being felt most painfully in a small, mainly Russian-speaking breakaway region of Moldova that has for decades looked to Moscow for protection.
Russian-backed separatists split from Moldova as the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, winning de facto independence for the region of some 450,000 people known as Transdniestria.
Russia maintains about 1,500 troops there and long provided free gas. That ended on New Year's Day when Ukraine, nearly three years after Moscow's full-scale invasion, refused to extend a transit deal letting Russia pump gas across its territory to central and eastern Europe.
The blow to Transdniestria was immediate. Households' central heating and hot water were cut off on Wednesday. On Thursday, the government said all industrial enterprises apart from food producers had been forced to cease production.
In the main city, Tiraspol, residents said there was no sense of panic but people were queuing, sometimes by the dozen, to buy electric heaters and stoves.
Some locals said they were concerned that prices for essential goods such as bread and pasta - as well as blankets - had shot up since Wednesday.
Payment dispute. Russia had been pumping about 2 Bm3y of gas to Transdniestria - including a power plant providing energy for all Moldova, a country of 2.5 MM people that wants to join the European Union.
Separately from the gas transit dispute with Ukraine, Russian energy company Gazprom had said on Dec. 28 that it would stop supplying gas to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of $709 MM in unpaid gas debts that Russia says Moldova owes it. Moldova disputes that, and has put the debt at $8.6 MM.
Jonathan Eyal, international director at the RUSI think tank in London, said Russia's objective was to squeeze Moldova, foment trouble between the central government and Transdniestria, and turn an energy crisis into a political one.
He said it was in Moldova's interest to help the separatist region, whose self-declared independence is not recognized by any country and whose people it regards as its own citizens. But it would have to charge for any gas it could send to Transdniestria, and this could fuel further disputes.
"There is no question that the government would want to help. The question is whether the separatists will want to accept the help, and whether this could be a prelude to a much bigger tussle instead of being the beginning of a potential cooperative relationship," he said in an interview. "There is no question in my mind that Moscow now is banking on the possibility that the crisis would merely accentuate the separatist movement inside Moldova."
Russia blames Ukraine for the halting of gas transit and says the United States will benefit - by selling more gas to Europe. Moscow denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova but said last month, as the gas cut-off loomed, that it would take steps to protect its citizens and troops in Transdniestria and "react adequately to any provocations."
Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday the cutting of Russian gas to Transdniestria had created a crisis for his country. "We treat this as a security crisis aimed at enabling the return of pro-Russian forces to power in Moldova and weaponizing our territory against Ukraine, with whom we share a 1,200-km border," he said.
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