Russia reportedly mulls buying gas for Transnistria on European markets

The Russian government is considering purchasing gas on European markets for the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, which has been cut off from its normal supplies following the end of a gas transit contract between Moscow and Kyiv earlier this month, Russian state-affiliated daily Kommersant reported on Thursday.

According to Kommersant, Moscow plans to use an intermediary company to buy up to 3 million cubic metres of gas a day to supply Transnistria between now and April, at a cost of up to $164m to Russia’s federal budget.

Vadim Krasnoselsky, the internationally unrecognised separatist president of Transnistria, said on Wednesday that Russia would resume gas supplies to the region soon and urged people to “be patient a little bit longer,” Interfax reported.

Both the Ukrainian government and Russian energy giant Gazprom announced that the company’s gas exports to Europe via Ukrainian pipelines had come to an end on 1 January after a five-year transit deal between the countries expired, plunging Moldova and Transnistria into an energy crisis, with thousands of people left without heating and hot water in Transnistria.

A predominantly Russian-speaking region bordering Ukraine that has been run as a de facto independent country since the 1990s despite being an internationally recognised part of Moldova, Transnistria is heavily reliant on Russian support in most spheres, including energy supplies.

After a meeting of the country’s Security Council on Monday, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that humanitarian assistance had been offered to Tiraspol since November but had been rejected each time, adding that it was clearly the Kremlin “behind this irrational refusal”, Moldovan news outlet NewsMaker reported.

While Sandu accused the Kremlin of deliberately destabilising the situation in Moldova, she also indicated that Chișinău would not hinder Trasnistria’s contacts with Moscow, as Moldova wanted “the humanitarian crisis to end as soon as possible”.