Moldova is facing a security crisis after Russia cut off gas supplies to its breakaway region of Transdniestria. The move has left residents without heating and hot water, and factories have been forced to shut down.
Moldova faces a security crisis after its breakaway enclave of Transdniestria was cut off from supplies of Russian gas, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday. Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe were halted on New Year’s Day after a transit agreement between the warring countries expired, and Kyiv rejected doing further business with Moscow.
Recean said Moldova would cover its own energy needs with domestic production and imports but noted the separatist Transdniestria region had suffered a painful hit despite its ties with Moscow. Residents there have lost hot water and central heating, and all factories except food producers have been forced to stop production. “By jeopardising the future of the protectorate it has backed for three decades in an effort to destabilise Moldova, Russia is revealing the inevitable outcome for all its allies – betrayal and isolation,” Recean said in a statement. “We treat this as a security crisis aimed at enabling the return of pro-Russian forces to power in Moldova and weaponising our territory against Ukraine, with whom we share a 1,200 km border.” Russia denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova, and blames Kyiv for refusing to renew the gas transit deal. But Russian gas giant Gazprom had separately said on Dec. 28 that it would suspend exports to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of what Russia says are unpaid Moldovan debts of $709-million. Moldova disputes that, and has put the figure at $8.6-million. The southeast European nation of about 2.5 million people has been in the spotlight since Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine at a time of mounting tensions between Moscow and the West. Its pro-European President Maia Sandu won a second term in an election last year and has pledged to accelerate reform and consolidate democratisation.The mainly Russian-speaking territory of Transdniestria, which split from Moldova in the 1990s, received Russian gas via Ukrain
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