Breakaway European region switches off heating after Ukraine halts gas transit
Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria has halted heating and hot water supply to households on the first day of 2025 after the flow of Russian gas via Ukraine stopped, a local energy company has said.
On Wednesday, Russian energy giant Gazprom announced that it could not deliver gas to Europe via the Ukrainian route anymore due to Kiev's “repeated and clear refusal” to prolong the relevant agreements that expired at the end of 2024.
Later in the day, Transnistria’s energy company, Tirasteploenergo, said that that because of “the temporary cessation of gas deliveries to the heat-generating facilities of the enterprise... heating and hot water supply to the population, publicly funded institutions and organizations of all forms of ownership will be cut.”
For now, only medical facilities that provide inpatient care will be heated, the company added.
“There is no heating or hot water,” an unnamed employee of Tirasteploenergo in the republic’s capital of Tiraspol told Reuters by phone. The woman said she did not know how long the situation would continue.
In mid-December, Transnistria introduced a state of economic emergency due to the looming gas crisis. Shortly thereafter, Moldova announced a state of emergency in the energy sector.
Transnistria, which is located on the left bank of the Dniester River and whose population is more than half ethnically Russian and Ukrainian, proclaimed independence from Moldova in the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Around 1,100 Russian soldiers are currently stationed in the region as peacekeepers in order to monitor a 1992 ceasefire between Chisinau and Tiraspol.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko confirmed the stoppage of gas supplies on Wednesday, calling it a “historic event.” The minister claimed that due to the decision by Kiev “Russia is losing markets, it will suffer financial losses. Europe has already made a decision to give up Russian gas.”
Ukraine refused to prolong the transit contract with Russia despite the fact that Gazprom has long-term agreements with several European buyers.
The leader of one such country, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, threatened last week to cut electricity supplies to Ukraine if the flow of gas ceases.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that the deadlock over gas supplies via Ukraine will not be resolved, adding that “this transit contract will not exist anymore, it’s clear. But we will manage; Gazprom will manage.”
