The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria is suffering a “severe” energy crisis, with almost all factories now idle after Russia halted gas supplies to the region, a separatist official said Thursday.
Russia’s Gazprom cut off gas on Wednesday over a financial dispute with the Moldovan government in Chisinau, the same day a major gas transit agreement between Moscow and Kyiv to ship gas across Ukraine came to an end.
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“The crisis is so severe that there is no need to list which enterprises have stopped. All industrial enterprises have stopped, except for those engaged in food production,” said Sergei Obolonik, the self-proclaimed republic’s economy minister.
Transnistria, a tiny breakaway state in Moldova that borders Ukraine, relies on Russian gas for heating and power and has now started burning coal at its largest power station to meet its energy needs.
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Authorities restricted heating and hot water to thousands of people in the region on Wednesday, while an energy supplier urged residents to “dress warmly,” gather into a single room and seal doors and windows with curtains and blankets.
The thin slither of land has been de facto controlled by pro-Russian forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but is internationally recognized as part of Moldova.
The region’s pro-Moscow leader, Vadim Krasnoselsky, said Thursday that more than 70,000 households had no gas, used to provide hot water and heating in the winter.
And more than 1,500 apartment blocks in towns and cities had no hot water or heating, he added.
“It is difficult, but we will not allow social collapse,” he said, praising residents for going to the forest to collect firewood.
Schools and universities have also lost heating, with pupils switching to remote learning, local media reported.
Russian supplies via Ukraine would have been cut off with the end of the transit deal anyway, but Chisinau said last year that Gazprom had the option of providing gas through a pipeline network that runs across the Black Sea to Turkey and then up through the Balkans.
The rest of Moldova has been spared for now, able to secure power imports from neighboring Romania.
It was already cut-off from direct Russian gas, but still relied on a major Russian-supplied power plant in Transnistria for electricity.
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