Moldovans brace for ‘no heating, no light’ when Russia halts gas supplies

CHISINAU, MOLDOVA —

On a cold morning in Moldova’s capital, 39-year-old postal worker Petru Murzin is bracing for a harsh winter as he fears a looming energy shortage could leave many Moldovans “without heat, without light”.

His concerns are not unfounded.

Russian state energy giant Gazprom is set to halt gas supplies to the European Union candidate country on January 1 due to an alleged debt of $709 million for previous deliveries, a figure hotly contested by Moldova’s pro-Western government, which has accused Moscow of weaponizing energy as a political tool to destabilize the country. .

“I feel that we have entered a crisis that is quite difficult to solve … which worries me a lot,” Murzin told The Associated Press in Chisinau. Price increases are one thing, but when there is no gas at all, it is something completely different.

The outage will stop the flow of gas to the Kuciurgan power plant, the country’s largest, located in the separatist pro-Russian region of Transnistria. The gas-fired plant produces electricity that supplies a significant part of Moldova.

“There will be no heating, no light,” added Murzin. “We are entering a very difficult year.”

Transnistria declared a state of emergency

Transnistria, which broke away after a brief war in 1992 and is not recognized by most countries, also declared its own state of emergency earlier in December, fearing the region would not receive gas supplies. The vast majority of Transnistria’s 470,000 people speak Russian as their first language, and about 200,000 are Russian citizens.

On December 13, Moldova’s parliament voted to impose a state of emergency in the energy sector as a looming crisis threatened to leave the former Soviet republic without enough power this winter, sparking fears it could spark a humanitarian crisis in Transnistria, where the impact of gas cuts could be felt immediately.

Many observers predict that looming energy shortages could force Transnistrians to travel to Moldova in search of basic amenities to weather the winter, a season when temperatures across the country regularly drop below zero degrees Celsius.

Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland University, said Moscow is likely trying to use “a potential humanitarian crisis in Transnistria to overwhelm Moldova’s already strained resources” to heighten tensions between Chisinau and the region’s de facto capital, Tiraspol.

“This could fuel fear among Moldovan voters of violent conflict and give rise to pro-Russian parties who will accuse Chisinau of being responsible for increasing gas and electricity prices, which will be a major campaign issue” ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections in 2025, he said.

Chisinau is taking steps

The unprecedented situation prompted Chisinau last week to implement a series of energy-saving measures starting Jan. 1, including reducing lighting in public and commercial buildings by at least 30%, and energy-intensive businesses operating outside peak hours.

“We will probably have to save electricity until we find a solution,” said Nicoleta Neagu, who is from Moldova but works in Germany. “I hope we will seriously consider this and not waste our energy on not so useful things.”

After Gazprom announced it would cut gas flows, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean accused Moscow of using energy “as a political weapon” and said his government did not recognize the debt claimed by the Russian energy giant, which he said had been “cancelled since foreign international audit.”

“This decision once again confirms the Kremlin’s intention to leave the residents of the Transnistrian region without light and heating in the middle of winter,” he said.

For 30-year-old Chisinau resident Iuliana, who did not want to give her last name, the power outage would prevent her online business from being carried out, which could also be unsustainable if the heating goes out in the middle of winter in the country of about 2.5 million people.

“We are afraid, but we are happy that there is no snow and that the temperatures are not so low, and we can turn on the heating maybe only in the evening if we work in the office,” she said. “But I work from home and it will affect me directly.”

She also noted that Moldova has faced multiple crises in recent years, “but in terms of electricity and gas, this is the first time we are facing this,” she said.

‘Energy blackmail’

Moldovan President Maia Sandu criticized Russia on Monday over Gazprom’s decision, saying the country had gas reserves “for the heating season” and that measures would be taken “to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply”, adding that there were also plans to provide humanitarian aid residents in Transnistria.

“The Kremlin is again using energy blackmail in an attempt to destabilize the situation, influence the parliamentary elections in 2025 and undermine our European path,” she said. “It is important to remain united, show solidarity and believe in Moldova and its people. And use energy rationally.”

Moldova has repeatedly claimed that Russia is waging a massive “hybrid war” against the country by meddling in elections, funding anti-government protests and running extensive disinformation campaigns to try to topple the government and derail the country’s EU membership bid.

The Kuciurgan factory was privatized in 2004 by Transnistrian officials and later sold to a Russian state company, but Chisinau does not recognize the privatization. On Monday, Recean asked the justice minister to review the nationalization law, to potentially recover “strategic assets that have been forcibly taken over.”

Citing findings from British and Norwegian audit firms, Moldova claims its debt is close to $8.6 million, a fraction of what the Russian energy giant claims. Gazprom said in a statement on Saturday that it reserves the right to take further action, including terminating the contract with Moldovagaz, Moldova’s main gas operator, in which the Russian company owns a majority stake.

In late 2022, months after Russia fully invaded neighboring Ukraine, Moldova suffered massive power outages following Russian attacks on Ukraine, which is interconnected with the Kuciurgan power plant.

When the war in the neighborhood began, Moldova was completely dependent on Moscow for natural gas, but since then it has sought to diversify and expand its energy sources, and now relies on obtaining gas from other European markets.

Murzin, a postal worker, expects a large influx of people from Transnistria to cross the border after the shortages occur.

“I think that cars will wait in a queue of several kilometers at the border,” he said. “A lot of people will come here, hoping for warmth.”