A solution to relieve transnistry. This pro-Russian separatist Moldovan region has known major power cuts, hot water and heating since January 1, 2025. The reason? This date was that of the expiration of the contract between kyiv and Moscow which allowed the transit of Russian gas in this border territory of Ukraine, east of Moldova. The rest of the country is currently spared by cuts thanks to imports of electricity and gas from Romania.
This Saturday, January 25, Moldavian president, Maia Sandu, moved to kyiv to meet her Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. “We will discuss security, energy, infrastructure, trade and mutual support on the EU way,” she announced this morning, in a message published on the social network X. Like the Reported the agency of the country Novosti Pridnestrovia, Friday, demonstrations took place in Transnistria to push the Moldavian power to facilitate the delivery of Russian gas and put an end to the energy crisis.
“Free” coal provided by Ukraine?
At the end of his meeting with Maia Sandu, Volodymyr Zelensky, expressed another option to settle the situation. “We have coal that we can provide to Moldova, in Tiraspol [la capitale de la région, NDLR]. If they really want people to have electricity, “he said. According to the Ukrainian president, his country would be” ready to discuss a low or even free price “to deliver this material to this band of land, populated by half a million inhabitants.
This coal could supply the Cuciurgan power station, south of the transnistria, which then fed 70 % of Moldova electricity before the Russian gas cut. “Now, it is up to Tiraspol to accept this help and make people have heating and electricity as quickly as possible,” said Maia Sandu in turn. The Ukrainian President also mentioned the possibility that the transnistry provides, in turn, from electricity to Ukraine, whose energy infrastructure has been undermined by the Russian intensive bombardments.
A region with a tense geostrategic context
Transnistria declared the state of emergency after the end of the supply of Russian gas in the region, which hitherto passed through an immense gas pipeline crossing all of Ukraine. The Géant Gazprom provided this resource free of charge to the territory. Monday, January 20, the separatist leader of the region, Vadim Krasnosselski, said that he had sent a message to the Moldovan President to offer her to buy natural gas to the national company of the country. A missive that has remained unanswered. Earlier, the manager had pointed out that Moscow was “ready to help transnistry”, via potential deliveries. Without, again, realization.
In Chisinau, the authorities have been fearing since the invasion of their Ukrainian neighbor by Russia to see Moldova also involved in a military conflict. Prime Minister Moldavian, Dorin Recean, accused Moscow of wanting to “create instability in Moldova”, in an interview with AFP on Wednesday. He said that the crisis would only find a lasting solution with a withdrawal from the Russian troops stationed in Transnistria from a war between this territory and Moldova in 1992, at the fall of the USSR.