Moldova faces a security crisis after its breakaway enclave of Transnistria was cut off from supplies of Russian gas, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday.
Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe were halted on New Year's Day after a transit agreement between the warring countries expired, and Kyiv rejected doing further business with Moscow.
Recean said Moldova would cover its own energy needs with domestic production and imports but noted the separatist Transnistria region had suffered a painful hit, despite its ties with Moscow.
Residents there have lost hot water and central heating, and all factories except food producers have been forced to stop production.
"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 in a statement.
"We treat this as a security crisis aimed at enabling the return of pro-Russian forces to power in Moldova and weaponizing our territory against Ukraine, with whom we share a 1,200 km border."
Russia denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova, and blames Kyiv for refusing to renew the gas transit deal.
But Russian gas giant Gazprom had separately said on December 28 that it would suspend exports to Moldova on January 1 because of what Moscow says are unpaid Moldovan debts of $709 million. Moldova disputes that, and has put the figure at $8.6 million.
The southeast European nation of about 2.5 million people has been in the spotlight since Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine at a time of mounting tensions between Moscow and the West.
Its pro-European president, Maia Sandu, won a second term in an election last year and has pledged to accelerate reform and consolidate democratisation.
Moldova plans to hold a parliamentary election this summer.
The mainly Russian-speaking territory of Transnistria, which split from Moldova in the 1990s, received Russian gas via Ukraine.
In turn, Moldova used to receive the bulk of its electricity from Transnistria but with Kyiv making clear it would stop gas transit from Russia, the Chisinau government prepared alternative arrangements, with a mixture of domestic production and electricity imports from Romania, Recean said.
He said the Moldovan government remained committed to helping the enclave.
"Alternative energy solutions, such as biomass systems, generators, humanitarian aid, and essential medical supplies, are ready for delivery should the breakaway leadership accept the support," the government said in a statement.
Transnistria's pro-Russian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky has said the region had gas reserves that could cover 10 days of limited usage in northern parts and twice as long in the south.
Transnistrians worried
When the gas was cut to his multi-storey apartment complex in Tiraspol, Transnistria’s main city, Boris, 54, dragged out a Soviet-era electric stove from his garage. It provides just enough heat to cook meals and warm the kitchen, while an electric heater warms his and his wife's bedroom.
"My wife and I have a stable income, and our children will help out, but what about the old pensioners?" Boris, who declined to be identified by his full name, told Reuters. "What will happen to them if their gas stoves turn off?"
Another Tiraspol resident said there was no sense of panic but people were queuing, sometimes by the dozen, to buy electric heaters and stoves.
Some locals told Reuters they were concerned that prices for essential goods such as bread and pasta – as well as blankets – had shot up since Wednesday.
