Transnistria is in crisis due to Russian gas outage in Ukraine.

Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region is plunged into a deep energy crisis after 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 will spend the remainder of the winter without heat or power after Ukraine cut off Russian gas supplies to several European countries over the New Year.

The widely expected shutdown, confirmed Wednesday by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom, ends Moscow’s decades of dominance over European energy markets.

Along with Slovakia and Austria, Moldova was considered one of the countries most at risk from disruptions in Russian gas supplies.

Romania, a landlocked Eastern European country located between Romania and Ukraine, declared a 60-day state of emergency last month due to concerns about energy security.

Transnistria, Moldova’s separatist, pro-Russian enclave, broke away in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union but is still internationally recognized as part of Moldova.

A disruption in Russian gas supplies on Wednesday forced the region to close almost all industrial enterprises except food producers.

“All industrial enterprises are idle, except those engaged in food production, that is, those that directly ensure food security in Transdniestria,” the region’s First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ovolonik told a local news channel, according to Reuters. .

“It is too early to judge how the situation will develop…. The problem is so widespread that if it is not addressed for a long time, irreversible changes will already occur. In other words, companies will lose their ability to start businesses. .”

By Wednesday, Russian gas had reached Moldova through neighboring Ukraine. However, as the war progressed, neither Moscow nor Kiev were willing to sign new gas transit contracts.

Russia, which has been shipping gas to Europe through Ukrainian pipelines since 1991, argued that European Union countries would suffer the most from changes in supplies. Moscow can still send gas via the TurkStream pipeline, which connects Russia with Hungary, Serbia and Turkey.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said it had been working with EU member states most affected 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 but narrowly voted in favor of strengthening EU ties in last year’s referendum, is currently facing a severe gas shortage.

The leader of Transnistria’s breakaway region, Vadim Krasnoselsky, said on Telegram on Thursday that the situation was “difficult but social breakdown is unacceptable.”

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

Krasnoselsky said Wednesday that Transnistria’s main power plant began using coal after a gas supply cutoff from Russia, noting that the territory has enough gas reserves to last 10 days of limited use in the northern region and in the southern region. estimated it would take twice as long.

“The year in Transnistria began with a serious test: the energy crisis triggered by an unfavorable combination of external factors,” Krasnoselsky said, according to a translation.

Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Resian on Friday accused the Kremlin of “gas blackmail”, saying the country faces a security crisis after Russian gas flows through Ukraine were cut off.

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

“By endangering the future of the protectorate it has supported for 30 years to destabilize Moldova, Russia is exposing the inevitable consequences for all its allies: betrayal and isolation,” Recean said.

“We see this as a security crisis to allow pro-Russian forces to regain power in Moldova and to weaponize our territory against Ukraine, with which we share a 1,200 km border,” he added.

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

Moldova’s prime minister said the country had secured electricity supply in early 2025, with half of the country’s energy consumption covered domestically and the other half from imports.

Moldova’s parliament said late last year that disruption of Russian gas supplies to the Transnistrian region could cause a “humanitarian crisis” as well as a “risk to the functioning and stability” of Moldova’s energy sector.

Moldova is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in 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 election. The vote was seen as a further step for the former Soviet republic toward integration with the bloc.

— CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.