{"id":208134,"date":"2025-01-05T10:26:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-05T10:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/05\/a-gas-cutoff-sends-shivers-through-a-russian-backed-breakaway-region\/"},"modified":"2025-01-05T10:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T10:26:05","slug":"a-gas-cutoff-sends-shivers-through-a-russian-backed-breakaway-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/05\/a-gas-cutoff-sends-shivers-through-a-russian-backed-breakaway-region\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gas Cutoff Sends Shivers Through a Russian-Backed Breakaway Region"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/05\/multimedia\/05moldova-gas-pmkz\/05moldova-gas-pmkz-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A Gas Cutoff Sends Shivers Through a Russian-Backed Breakaway Region\" title=\"A Gas Cutoff Sends Shivers Through a Russian-Backed Breakaway Region\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The shop used to sell flowers and gardening gear to visitors from just down the road, where a tiny breakaway region of Moldova has for more than 30 years stood defiantly apart, with support from Russian troops.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since the halt of gas from Russia on New Year\u2019s Day, however, the store has been selling mostly electric heaters to freezing residents of Transnistria, the self-declared microstate in eastern Moldova.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The cheaper models have already sold out, a saleswoman said, but higher-end heaters are selling fast, as 350,000 inhabitants of Transnistria endure an energy crisis that has shut down factories, left Soviet-era apartment blocks without heating and hot water and raised questions about the survival of their go-it-alone, Russian-speaking enclave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The situation is so bad that the region\u2019s president, Vadim Krasnoselsky \u2014 who leads an entity unrecognized by all other countries, including Russia \u2014 tried to reassure his people on Thursday: \u201cWe will not allow a societal collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is difficult,\u201d Mr. Krasnoselsky said, enumerating thousands of businesses, schools, farms and homes that were struggling without heat. Citizens had shown \u201cgreat responsibility,\u201d he said, by \u201cgoing out into the forest to collect dead wood\u201d to burn at home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/01\/world\/europe\/russia-ukraine-natural-gas-europe.html\" title=\"\">crisis began on Jan. 1<\/a>, when Russia\u2019s energy giant Gazprom stopped pumping natural gas through Ukraine, its remaining major export route to Europe, after Ukraine refused to a renew a five-year gas transit deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In most places once dependent on Russian gas, like Hungary, the shutdown\u2019s consequences were softened by alternative suppliers from the West. But Transnistria, a tiny sliver of territory built on unswerving loyalty to Russia, faces an existential crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dorin Recean, the prime minister of Moldova, which has long demanded that the region give up its claims of statehood, accused Russia of inducing an \u201cimpending humanitarian crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBy jeopardizing the future of the protectorate that it has backed for three decades in an effort to destabilize Moldova, Russia is revealing the inevitable outcome for all its allies \u2014 betrayal and isolation,\u201d Mr. Recean <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/gov.md\/en\/content\/russia-scales-regional-security-risks-halting-gas-supplies-transnistrian-region-moldova\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Distracted by the war in Ukraine and more cautious about investing resources, Russia has shown an increased willingness recently to cut its losses, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/20\/us\/russia-syria-military-bases-middle-east-setbacks.html\" title=\"\">most notably in Syria,<\/a> where it stood on the sidelines last month as rebels toppled Moscow\u2019s closest ally in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Alexandru Flenchea, a former deputy prime minister of Moldova who was responsible for trying to reintegrate Transnistria, said that Russia was not yet ready to abandon the region, valuing its use for exerting military and political pressure over Moldova.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia\u2019s desire for leverage, Mr. Flenchea said, grew more acute in October when Moldovan voters narrowly endorsed <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/20\/world\/europe\/moldova-election-russia-eu.html\" title=\"\">changing the Constitution<\/a> to lock the country\u2019s exit from Moscow\u2019s sphere of influence, aligning more closely with the West.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But, Mr. Flenchea added, Russia\u2019s readiness to let Transnistria freeze without gas or its major source of revenue \u2014 the sale of electricity to Moldova from a gas-powered power station \u2014 suggested that the region was in serious trouble.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe whole model in Transnistria relies on free Russian gas. No free Russian gas, the whole thing collapses,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think Russia will let this happen soon. It still needs them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Others see Transnistria\u2019s travails less as a sign of Russian retreat than of its determination to divert Moldova from its pro-European course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Also cut off from Russian gas, Moldova has over the past week shifted to more expensive alternatives, including electricity from Romania. This saved Moldova from going cold but doubled the price of electricity for consumers, which could carry a heavy political price for the pro-Western government in elections this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia\u2019s goal, said Vladislav Kulminski, a former government official now with the Institute for Strategic Initiatives, a Moldovan research group, \u201cis to keep us in a gray zone by getting an election result that will bring to power a different government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201dEverything has been thrown up in the air,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what shape it will take when all the pieces fall to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/video\/world\/100000008272335\/russia-disinformation-moldova.html\" title=\"\">retro police state<\/a> with its own currency and passports \u2014 and a successful soccer team financed by local tycoons \u2014 Transnistria has an expansive security service, reinforced by Russians, and it has worked hard to control what people hear about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Transnistria\u2019s media outlets, echoing Russian talking points, blame Ukraine, the United States and Moldova\u2019s government for the gas cutoff. Whispers that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia might also be to blame are taboo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The media blitz seems to be working.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cPutin would never abandon us,\u201d said Grigory Kravatenko, a resident of Bender, an industrial town bordering Moldovan-controlled territory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Asked whether Transnistria might be better off less aligned with Moscow, he added: \u201cWe are not for Russia. We are not for Moldova. We are not for Ukraine. We are for ourselves and we are all suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cooking stoves kept working for a while after the Jan. 1 cutoff, thanks to gas that was still in the pipes. But now they, too, are spluttering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Transnistria resident who gave only her first name, Yulia, walking on Friday with her infant daughter down an abandoned railway track, said she was sure that Russia would soon come to the rescue. \u201cOf course they won\u2019t let us die,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Victor Ceban, an Orthodox Christian priest responsible for parishes along the zigzagging border, said he avoided talking about who was responsible. \u201cWhatever you say to one person you become somebody else\u2019s enemy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In some places, the border is marked with concrete barriers manned by Russians in fatigues. But it is so unclear in other places that it is easy to stray into Transnistria. Waved through a checkpoint this past week by a soldier with a Russian flag on his shoulder, journalists asked people at a bus stop if they knew of Transnistria\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOf course we do. This is Transnistria,\u201d an elderly woman said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Ceban, the priest, walking from home to home on Friday through the Moldovan-controlled village of Varnita, offered blessings ahead of Orthodox Christmas and prayers that his mostly geriatric flock would not suffer long without heat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Transnistria, the most prosperous part of Moldova when both were part of the Soviet Union, first broke away to form a renegade state in the early 1990s, the region boasted it would become a Russian-speaking version of Switzerland \u2014 a proudly independent haven from the turmoil gripping Moldova, which was deeply impoverished.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The breakaway region became a template for what has since been a drive by Russia to keep its influence in former Soviet lands by supporting separatists: first in Moldova, then in Georgia and in eastern Ukraine. In all three countries, local militants backed by Russian muscle declared their own microstates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The deployment of Russia troops in Transnistria, originally as peacekeepers but still there decades after the fighting stopped, ensured that Moldova could never retake the territory by force and doomed diplomatic efforts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-11\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Just as important to Transnistria\u2019s survival, however, has been Russian gas, provided virtually free to keep a steel plant and other industries working \u2014 and to fuel the power station selling electricity to Moldova.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-12\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Moldova\u2019s secretary of state for energy, Constantin Borosan, said that, before the current crisis, electricity generated in Transnistria had met about three-quarters of his country\u2019s demand and provided about half of the separatist region\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese people lived on subsidized gas from Russia,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it looks as if Russia has abandoned them.\u201d He noted that Gazprom had ignored suggestions from Moldova that it could, using an alternate export route under the Black Sea, still get gas to Transnistria \u2014 if the Kremlin wanted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t know what is going on in the head of Putin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Whatever Russia\u2019s intentions, it is causing widespread pain not only in Transnistria, but also to residents of Moldovan-controlled territory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-13\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Alexandru Nichitenco, the mayor of Varnita, a village surrounded by Transnistria and dependent on its energy, said that most of its 5,100 inhabitants could no longer heat their homes. They faced disaster, he said, especially if the usual winter temperatures \u2014 typically many degrees below freezing \u2014 grip the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said he did not blame Transnistria: \u201cThey can\u2019t do anything. Moscow controls everything over there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Veronica Ostap, a mother in Varnita struggling to keep her family fed without a working stove, said she was waiting for her pay next week to buy an electric kettle. She was keeping one room warm with an electric heater so that her three young boys can sleep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Baptist Christian, she thanked God for keeping the temperature around zero, at least during the day. \u201cThe Lord is trying to help us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-14\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Ruxanda Spatari contributed reporting from Chisinau, Moldova, and <!-- -->Nataliya Vasilyeva<!-- --> from Berlin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/05\/world\/europe\/russia-gas-moldova-transnistria.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The shop used to sell flowers and gardening gear to visitors from just down the road, where a tiny breakaway region of Moldova has for more than 30 years stood defiantly apart, with support from Russian troops. Since the halt of gas from Russia on New Year\u2019s Day, however, the store has been selling mostly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/05\/multimedia\/05moldova-gas-pmkz\/05moldova-gas-pmkz-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6604,73172,137233,170,94790,123545,137131,8732,202,164214,164212,177,154801,164213,1130],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208136,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208134\/revisions\/208136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}