Moscow-backed enclave in Moldova feels pain from lack of Russian gas

By Mark Trevelyan, Lucy Papachristou and Filipp Lebedev

(Reuters) - The severing of one of Russia's last gas export routes to Europe is being felt most painfully in a small, mainly Russian-speaking breakaway region of Moldova that has for decades looked to Moscow for protection.

Russian-backed separatists split from Moldova as the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, winning de facto independence for the region of some 450,000 people known as Transdniestria.

Russia maintains about 1,500 troops there and long provided free gas. That ended on New Year's Day when Ukraine, nearly three years after Moscow's full-scale invasion, refused to extend a transit deal letting Russia pump gas across its territory to central and eastern Europe.

The blow to Transdniestria was immediate. Households' central heating and hot water were cut off on Wednesday. On Thursday, the government said all industrial enterprises apart from food producers had been forced to cease production.

When the gas was cut to his multi-storey apartment complex in Tiraspol, the 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.

PAYMENT DISPUTE

Russia had been pumping about 2 billion cubic metres of gas per year to Transdniestria - including a power plant providing energy for all Moldova, a country of 2.5 million people that wants to join the European Union.

Separately from the gas transit dispute with Ukraine, Russian energy company Gazprom had said on Dec. 28 that it would stop supplying gas to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of $709 million in unpaid gas debts that Russia says Moldova owes it. Moldova disputes that, and has put the debt at $8.6 million.

Jonathan Eyal, international director at the RUSI think tank in London, said Russia's objective was to squeeze Moldova, foment trouble between the central government and Transdniestria, and turn an energy crisis into a political one.

He said it was in Moldova's interest to help the separatist region, whose self-declared independence is not recognised by any country and whose people it regards as its own citizens. But it would have to charge for any gas it could send to Transdniestria, and this could fuel further disputes.

"There is no question that the government would want to help. The question is whether the separatists will want to accept the help, and whether this could be a prelude to a much bigger tussle instead of being the beginning of a potential cooperative relationship," he said in an interview.

"There is no question in my mind that Moscow now is banking on the possibility that the crisis would merely accentuate the separatist movement inside Moldova."

Russia blames Ukraine for the halting of gas transit and says the United States will benefit - by selling more gas to Europe. Moscow denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova but said last month, as the gas cut-off loomed, that it would take steps to protect its citizens and troops in Transdniestria and "react adequately to any provocations".

Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday the cutting of Russian gas to Transdniestria had created a crisis for his country.

"We treat this as a security crisis aimed at enabling the return of pro-Russian forces to power in Moldova and weaponising our territory against Ukraine, with whom we share a 1,200 km border," he said.

'RUSSIA WILL NOT ABANDON US'

In Transdniestria, authorities are eking out their remaining reserves of gas and some is still being pumped to apartments so people can cook food. The main power plant has switched from gas to coal.

In Rybnitsa, a city of about 50,000 in northern Transdniestria, 52-year-old Alla said she had lit a fire in one room of her home and that only "the will of God" would turn her gas back on.

In Bender, a city of 90,000, Maria Zolotukhina, 32, said her employer had told her to stay home, where she was using an electric heater.

She did not know whether she would continue to be paid, but said she was counting on Russia to come to the rescue.

"We are allies of Russia, no matter what. And we hope that Russia will not abandon us," she said.

(Additional reporting by Olena Harmash in Kyiv, Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Lucy Papachristou, Editing by Timothy Heritage)