Moldova has dismissed Russian claims that it is to blame for a growing energy crisis in the Moscow-backed breakaway region of Transdniestria, and accused the Kremlin of trying to undermine the country’s pro-western government before elections.
Russian state energy giant Gazprom stopped supplying gas to Transdniestria this month over alleged fuel debts owed by Moldova, prompting a power crisis that forced the separatist-run region to move to eight hours of rolling blackouts on Tuesday.
The Moldovan government in Chisinau, which wants to join the European Union, says the separatists have rejected its offers of help and are complicit in Moscow’s latest effort to use economic pressure to force the country to return to Russia’s orbit.
“Let it be very clear: the responsibility for gas deliveries [to Transdniestria] rests entirely with the Russian Federation and Gazprom, which have chosen not to honour their contractual obligations,” Moldova’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
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“The decision to halt deliveries is purely political, intended to destabilise the Republic of Moldova. Any attempt to attribute this responsibility to other parties is not only false but also deeply cynical.”
Most of Moldova is now receiving gas via neighbouring EU member Romania, but Gazprom has declined to provide gas to Transdniestria via this trans-Balkan pipeline.
Gazprom claims that a Moldovan gas firm owes hundreds of millions of euro in arrears, but Chisinau denies this and accuses Moscow of trying to plunge the country into crisis before parliamentary elections later this year. Maia Sandu, Moldova’s strongly pro-western president, said Russia spent tens of millions of euro on vote-buying and other efforts to thwart her re-election last autumn.
The foreign ministry in Chisinau summoned Russian ambassador Oleg Ozerov on Monday after his embassy blamed the Moldovan government, neighbouring Ukraine and the West for the energy crisis in Transdniestria. Russian gas flows to EU states via Ukraine stopped this month after Kyiv declined to sign a new transit deal with Moscow.
“We state with certainty that the situation [in Transdniestria] was artificially created by the collective West and Ukraine. No one should have any doubts: the protection of Russian citizens and compatriots is an absolute foreign policy priority,” the embassy said.
The Kremlin previously justified its military attacks on Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014 on the supposed need to “protect Russian citizens” in those countries.
Most of Transdniestria’s 350,000 or so residents are believed to have Russian passports, and about 1,500 Russian troops are based there on what Moscow calls a “peacekeeping” mission following a war in the early 1990s. Russia agreed to withdraw them in 1999 but has not done so, and about 20,000 tonnes of Soviet-era arms and ammunition are still stored in the impoverished and isolated region.
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