Ukraine’s halt of Russian gas to Europe throws breakaway Moldovan region into crisis mode

Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria has been thrust into a profound energy crisis following the termination of a five-year gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the mainly Russian-speaking territory of Transnistria are left facing the remaining winter months without heating or power after Ukraine halted the flow of Russian gas to several European countries on New Year’s Day.

The widely expected stoppage, which was confirmed by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday, marked an end to Moscow’s decades-long dominance over Europe’s energy markets.

Alongside Slovakia and Austria, Moldova was thought to be one of the countries most at risk from the cessation of Russian gas supplies.

The landlocked country in the northeastern corner of Europe’s Balkan region declared a 60-day state of emergency last month over energy security fears.

Transnistria, a separatist pro-Russian enclave in Moldova, broke away in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed, although it is still internationally recognized as part of Moldova.

The region has now been forced to close almost all industrial companies, with the exception of food producers, following Wednesday’s cut-off of Russian gas supplies.

“All industrial enterprises are idle, with the exception of those engaged in food production — that is, directly ensuring food security for Transdniestria,” Sergei Obolonik, first deputy prime minister of the region, told a local news channel on Thursday, according to Reuters.

“It is too early to judge how the situation will develop. … The problem is so extensive that if it is not resolved for a long time, we will already have irreversible changes — that is, enterprises will lose their ability to start up.”

Until Wednesday, Russian gas had reached Moldova via its neighbor of Ukraine. However, neither Moscow nor Kyiv had been willing to strike a new gas transit deal amid the ongoing war.

Russia, which has transported gas to Europe via Ukrainian pipelines since 1991, has claimed European Union countries will suffer the most from the supply shift. Moscow can still send gas via the TurkStream pipeline, which links Russia with Hungary, Serbia and Turkey.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said it has been working with EU member states most impacted by the end of the gas transit agreement to ensure the entire 27-nation bloc was prepared for such a scenario.

Moldova, which is not an EU member state but narrowly voted in favor of closer EU ties in a referendum last year, is now facing a significant gas shortage.

In Transnistria, the breakaway region’s leader Vadim Krasnoselsky said via Telegram on Thursday that the situation “is difficult, but social collapse is unacceptable.”

Krasnoselsky said more than 2,600 facilities in the region were currently without heat and hot water, of which over 1,500 were apartment buildings.

He said Wednesday that Transnistria’s main power plant had started using coal after the stoppage of Russian gas supplies and estimated that the enclave had enough gas reserves to last for 10 days of limited usage in its northern parts and twice as long in the south.

“In Transnistria, the year began with a serious test – an energy crisis provoked by an unfavorable combination of external factors,” Krasnoselsky said, according to a translation.

Moldova Prime Minister Dorin Recean said Friday that the country faces a security crisis after the stoppage of Russian gas flows via Ukraine and accused the Kremlin of “gas blackmail.”

In a statement on the government’s website, Recean warned of an impending humanitarian crisis for the 350,000 residents of the Transnistrian region.

“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.

“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,” he added.

Moldova’s prime minister said the country had managed to secure its electricity supply in the first days of 2025, with half of the country’s energy consumption covered by domestic sources and the other half coming from imports.

A spokesperson at the Russian Embassy in London was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.

The country’s parliament said late last year that the stoppage of Russian gas to its Transnistrian region could generate “a humanitarian crisis” as well as “risks to the functioning and stability” of the Moldova’s energy sector.

Sandwiched between Russia and Ukraine, Moldova is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections over the coming months. The vote is poised to shape the country’s future relationship with the EU.

In early November last year, European leaders congratulated pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu on winning a runoff vote in the country’s presidential election. The ballot was seen as a further step on the former Soviet republic’s road to integration with the bloc.

— CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.