Niente gas, niente riscaldamento. I russi hanno usato la Transnistria separatista come leva pre-elettorale per la Moldavia?

Separatist Transnistria, an unrecognized pseudo-republic in eastern Moldova, has been facing an energy crisis for a week after Ukraine failed to extend a contract with Russia on gas transit through its territory, and Russia’s Gazprom halted gas supplies to Moldova.

According to local authorities, 72,000 households in the 400,000-strong separatist region, which remains loyal to Moscow, are without gas.

More than 1,500 apartment buildings have no heating or hot water. Local governments have had to temporarily shut down more than a hundred boiler rooms that heated hot water.

Hundreds of local businesses have suspended their operations, which also means thousands of people have been left without work. Power outages, which are currently provided in Transnistria thanks to coal, are becoming more frequent. Schoolchildren’s winter holidays have been extended, and doctors have had to shorten their outpatient hours. People are buying heaters, warm blankets and, according to BBC News Ukraine, are stocking up on food that doesn’t require heat treatment: biscuits or cheese.

“Last night was quite difficult because (in the apartment) we were quite cold. The walls are damp. And the forecast says frost,” a resident of Tiraspol, the capital of unrecognized Transnistria, told the Russian edition of Deutsche Welle.

“I don’t understand how they can do this to people. We lived normally, we had normal relationships and suddenly – die of hunger, of cold,” another added.

On the verge of collapse

The New York Times recalls that while other European countries that were once dependent on Russian gas were able to compensate for the halt in transit from the east with alternative suppliers from the west, the breakaway region loyal to Russia has been facing an existential crisis since January 1.

“The entire system in Transnistria relies on free Russian gas. Without gas, it collapses,” said the NY Times, former deputy prime minister of the Moldovan government, who was in charge of the agenda of reintegration of the territory under the control of pro-Russian separatists back into Moldova, Alexandru Flenchea.

According to him, however, Moscow will not want to let it lose the influence it has in Transnistria. The region has been a Russian lever for more than 30 years, thanks to which Moscow can, if necessary, exert political or military pressure on Moldova, which in recent years has focused mainly on cooperation with Europe.

This was finally confirmed by the last presidential elections, in which pro-Western President Maia Sandu defended her position – despite Russian interference. The NY Times reminds us, however, that Moldova itself, with a population of two and a half million, is cut off from Russian gas and is switching to more expensive alternatives, including electricity supplies from Romania.

While this has protected Moldovan consumers from the cold in their apartments, they will have to dig deeper into their pockets this winter, which could be reflected in the results of the parliamentary elections that await the country in July.

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Off course they did