The Kremlin’s blackmail – impending gas outages: Moldova declares a state of emergency

A national state of emergency will be declared for 60 days from December 16, as Russian gas supplies are expected to be interrupted from January 1. Fifty-six members of the 101-seat chamber voted in favor of the measure shortly after midnight.

It is up to parliament to approve the state of emergency, Prime Minister Dorin Recean demanded, so that “this winter should be the last in the history of the country in which we can be blackmailed with energy.” Recean added that Moscow’s “gas blackmail” must end and that he also wants to ensure that Transnistria, an area on the Moldovan-Ukrainian border, receives urgently needed gas. By declaring a state of emergency, the government can respond quickly and limit energy exports.

Ukraine does not want to extend the transit contract with Gazprom
The Republic of Moldova receives Russian natural gas through Ukraine, which does not want to renew its transit contract with Russian gas giant Gazprom. The contract expires on December 31. The Republic of Moldova receives approximately two billion cubic meters of gas from Russia annually. Since 2022, Transnistria and the central government have agreed that all Russian gas received by Moldova will flow to Transnistria. Transnistria is home to a power plant powered by Russian gas, which is crucial to the region’s economy and also supplies most of the energy to the government-controlled areas of Moldova. Transnistria, which is not internationally recognized, already declared its own economic emergency on Tuesday.

An alternative route to Transnistria, according to Moldova, could be to send Russian gas via the TurkStream pipeline to Turkey and then via Bulgaria and Romania. However, the deliveries may be in doubt because Gazprom has linked the continuation of deliveries via alternative routes to the requirement that Moldova first pay off its debts for previous deliveries, which according to Russian calculations amount to US$709 million.