Transnistria refuses Moldovan assistance in gas purchase

Transnistria's Tiraspoltransgaz has refused the offer of Moldovan state companies to mediate gas imports after Russian supplies were cut off, the state secretary of the Moldovan Energy Ministry, Constantin Borosan, said on 5 January. This was announced on January 5 by the state secretary of the Moldovan Energy Ministry, Constantin Borosan.

"On January 2, Moldovagaz and Energocom offered Tiraspoltransgaz a functional mechanism for purchasing natural gas on regional markets. <...> On the same day, Tiraspoltransgaz refused this form of cooperation," he said in a video message published on the social network Facebook (owned by Meta, an organization recognized as extremist in Russia).

Borosan stressed that Tiraspoltransgaz cannot purchase gas on its own due to the lack of a corresponding license.

He noted that negotiations with Transnistria on this topic will continue.

The end of the world: Moldova and Transnistria prepare for the biggest energy crisis

Chisinau and Tiraspol declared a state of emergency

Russian energy company Gazprom said that gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine had been suspended since 8:00 Moscow time on January 1. Gas stopped flowing also to Moldova because of the country's unpaid debts. For his part, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean did not recognize the debt and threatened to sue.

On the same day, centralized heating was cut off in Transnistria, and the Moldovan State District Power Plant (MGRES) in the unrecognized republic switched to using coal. Moldova receives gas from other sources, so only Transnistria has a shortage of this type of fuel.

On January 2, Andrei Safonov, a deputy of the Supreme Council of the unrecognized Transnistrian Moldovan Republic (TMR), told Izvestia that Transnistria would be satisfied with the restoration of Russian gas supplies to its territory.

In August 2024, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky (his term expired on May 20 of the same year) said that the country would not extend the gas transit agreement with Russia, which expired at the end of last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that Moscow is not giving up gas supplies through Ukraine. In late December, Zelensky said he agreed to transit if Western countries would not pay the Russian side for the time being.

"Gazprom and Moldovagaz signed a five-year contract for gas supplies in the fall of 2021. It provided for Chisinau to pay the debt for supplies in the past few years. The entire volume was estimated at $709 million, of which Chisinau officially recognizes only $8.6 million.