Gas cuts raise shivers in a Russian-backed separatist region

The shop was selling flowers and gardening equipment to visitors across the road, where a small separatist region in Moldova has stood apart for more than 30 years, backed by Russian forces.

But since gas from Russia stopped on New Year’s Day, the store has been selling mostly electric heaters to the freezing residents of Transnistria, the self-declared microstate in eastern Moldova.

A saleswoman said that cheaper models had already been sold out, but high-end radiators were selling out quickly, as 350,000 people in Transnistria suffer from an energy crisis that has closed factories, left Soviet-era apartment buildings without heat and hot water and raised questions. About the survival of their Russian-speaking enclave acting on its own.

The situation is so bad that the region’s president, Vadim Krasnoselsky – who leads an entity not recognized by all other countries, including Russia – tried to reassure his people on Thursday: “We will not allow societal collapse.”

“It’s difficult,” Krasnoselsky said, as thousands of businesses, schools, farms and homes were suffering from a lack of heat. He added that citizens showed “great responsibility” by “going out into the forest to collect dead wood” to burn in their homes.

the The crisis began on January 1Russian energy giant Gazprom stopped pumping natural gas through Ukraine, the main remaining export route to Europe, after Ukraine refused to renew the gas transportation agreement for five years.

In most places that once relied on Russian gas, such as Hungary, the consequences of the shutdown have been mitigated by alternative suppliers from the West. But Transnistria, a small region of territory built on unwavering loyalty to Russia, is facing an existential crisis.

Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Risin, who has long demanded that the region abandon its demands for statehood, accused Russia of causing an “imminent humanitarian crisis.”

“By jeopardizing the future of the protectorate it has supported for three decades in an attempt to destabilize Moldova, Russia is revealing the inevitable outcome for all its allies – betrayal and isolation,” Resian said. He said Friday.

Russia, preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and more cautious about investing resources, has recently shown an increasing willingness to cut its losses. Most notably in Syria I stood on the sidelines last month when opposition fighters overthrew Moscow’s closest ally in the Middle East.

Alexandru Velencia, the former deputy prime minister of Moldova who was responsible for trying to reintegrate Transnistria, said Russia was not yet ready to abandon the region, appreciating its use to exert military and political pressure on Moldova.

Velencia said Russia’s desire for influence became more acute in October when voters narrowly supported the Moldovans. Change the constitution To secure the country’s exit from Moscow’s sphere of influence, and align more closely with the West.

But Velencia added that Russia’s willingness to allow Transnistria to freeze without gas or its main source of income – selling electricity to Moldova from a gas-fired power plant – suggested the region was in serious trouble.

“The whole model in Transnistria is based on free Russian gas. There is no free Russian gas, the whole thing collapses.” But I don’t think Russia will let that happen soon. It still needs them.

Others see Transnistria’s troubles less as a sign of Russia’s decline than of its determination to divert Moldova from its pro-European path.

With Russian gas supplies also cut off, Moldova has over the past week turned to more expensive alternatives, including electricity from Romania. This saved Moldova from the cold but led to a doubling of electricity prices for consumers, which could carry a heavy political price for the pro-Western government in elections this year.

Russia’s goal is “to keep us in a gray area by getting an election result that would bring a different government to power,” said Vladislav Kolminski, a former government official who now works at the Institute for Strategic Initiatives, a Moldova research group.

“Everything has been thrown up in the air,” he added. “We don’t know what shape it will take when all the pieces fall to the ground.”

A Reactionary police state With its own currency and passports – and a successful football team funded by local business tycoons – Transnistria has an extensive security apparatus, reinforced by the Russians, and has done its best to control what people hear.

Transnistrian media, echoing Russian talking points, blames Ukraine, the United States and the Moldovan government for cutting off gas supplies. Whispers that Russian President Vladimir Putin may also be responsible are taboo.

The media attack appears to be working.

“Putin will never abandon us,” said Grigory Kravatenko, a resident of Bender, an industrial city on the border with Moldova-controlled territory.

Asked whether Transnistria might be in a better position if it were less allied with Moscow, he added: “We are not for Russia. We are not for Moldova. We are not for Ukraine. We are for ourselves and we are all suffering.”

The cookstoves remained running for some time after the power outage on January 1, thanks to gas that was still in the pipes. But now they are also gossiping.

A Transnistrian resident, who gave only her first name, Yulia, as she walked on Friday with her infant daughter on an abandoned railway line, said she was sure Russia would soon come to the rescue. “Of course they won’t let us die,” she said.

Victor Siban, an Orthodox Christian priest in charge of parishes along the winding border, said he avoided talking about who was responsible. “Whatever you say to someone, you become someone else’s enemy,” he said.

In some places, the border is marked by concrete barriers guarded by Russians in military uniform. But it is not so obvious elsewhere that it is easy to get lost in Transnistria. Last week, a soldier with a Russian flag on his shoulder waved through a checkpoint, and reporters asked people at a bus stop if they knew about Transnistria’s problems.

“Of course we do. This is Transnistria,” said an elderly woman.

Walking from house to house on Friday through the Moldova-controlled village of Varnita, Pastor Siban offered blessings ahead of Orthodox Christmas and prayed that his mostly elderly flock would not suffer for too long without heat.

When Transnistria, the most prosperous part of Moldova when it was part of the Soviet Union, first broke away to form a rebel state in the early 1990s, the region bragged that it would become a Russian-speaking version of Switzerland – a haven proudly independent of Switzerland. Unrest sweeps Moldova, which was suffering from extreme poverty.

The breakaway region became a model for what has since become a campaign by Russia to maintain its influence in former Soviet territories by supporting separatists: first in Moldova, then in Georgia and eastern Ukraine. In all three countries, local fighters backed by Russian power have declared their own mini-states.

The deployment of Russian forces in Transnistria, originally as peacekeepers but still there decades after fighting stopped, ensured that Moldova was unable to reclaim the region by force, and that diplomatic efforts failed.

Equally important to Transnistria’s survival was Russian gas, which was supplied almost free, to power a steel mill and other industries — and to feed the power plant that sells electricity to Moldova.

Moldova’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs, Constantin Borusan, said that the electricity generated in Transnistria, before the current crisis, met about three-quarters of the demand in his country and provided about half of the separatist region’s budget.

“These people live on gas subsidized by Russia,” he said. “Now it looks as if Russia has abandoned them.” He noted that Gazprom had ignored Moldova’s suggestions that it could, using an alternative export route under the Black Sea, continue to deliver gas to Transnistria – if the Kremlin wanted.

“I don’t know what’s going through Putin’s mind,” he said.

Whatever Russia’s intentions, it is causing widespread pain, not only in Transnistria, but also for the residents of the territories controlled by Moldova.

Most of its 5,100 residents can no longer heat their homes, said Alexandro Nichitenko, the mayor of Varnita, a village surrounded by Transnistria that relies on its energy. He said they face disaster, especially if typical winter temperatures – which are usually well below freezing – take hold of the country.

He said he did not blame Transnistria: “They cannot do anything. Moscow controls everything there.”

Veronika Ostap, a mother in Varnita who struggles to feed her family without a working stove, said she was waiting for her salary next week to buy an electric kettle. She kept one room warm with an electric heater so her three young children could sleep.

Christian Baptists thanked God for keeping the temperature at zero, at least during the day. “The Lord is trying to help us,” she said.

Roksanda Spatari contributed reporting from Chisinau, Moldova and Natalia Vasilieva From Berlin.