By Alexander Tanas
CHISINAU (Reuters) -Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region expects to receive Russian gas again soon to meet its needs, its leader Vadim Krasnoselsky said on Wednesday, two weeks into crippling power cuts in the Russian-backed enclave.
The prime minister of Moldova’s pro-European central government said Russia was intent on bringing to power a Moscow-friendly government in the country. He said Moscow would probably provide volumes of gas too small to ensure electricity supplies to both rebel and government-held areas.
Tens of thousands of people in Transdniestria have been without gas or winter heating since Jan. 1, when Russia’s Gazprom suspended gas exports to the region, citing an unpaid Moldovan debt of $709 million that Chisinau does not recognise as valid.
Moscow blames the suspension of gas supplies on pro-Western Moldova and Ukraine, which refused to extend a five-year gas transit deal that expired on Dec. 31 on the grounds that the proceeds help fund Russia’s invasion.
“I hope that as a result of these negotiations (in Moscow), in the near future gas will be supplied to Transdniestria for electricity generation and to our citizens,” Krasnoselsky told a news briefing in Tiraspol, the main city in the rebel area.
“The gas will be supplied as humanitarian gas in the volume necessary for the population of Transdniestria, for heat and power generation and for industrial enterprises of Transdniestria,” he added.
Russia has not yet commented on the issue.
Krasnoselsky said there would be further negotiations to determine the start date for deliveries and their route.
Transdniestria, a tiny pro-Russian and mainly Russian-speaking separatist region along the Dniester River and the border with Ukraine, received about 2 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year via Ukraine, using the fuel to heat homes and generate electricity, which it sold to the rest of Moldova.
‘GAMES AND TRICKS’
Moldova’s authorities have said that despite a valid contract and the option of an alternative transit route, Gazprom is refusing to supply gas in order to destabilise its government ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections.
The government has sourced alternative supplies from Europe and has offered to help Transdniestria buy gas, but the offer was rejected by the separatist leaders there, who blame Moldova for the crisis.
“The Kremlin regime has held the people there hostage, mercilessly, in the cold and darkness, because it wants to bring to power (in Moldova) pro-Russian groups that will plunge our country into conflict and destabilize public order,” Moldova Prime Minister Dorin Recean told reporters in Chisinau.
Recean said it was clear volumes of gas would be insufficient to generate power for government-controlled areas of Moldova “and will push us towards a conflict.
“That is what the Kremlin wants. Chisinau will not accept these games and tricks.”
Recean said his government was taking legal advice on bringing under Moldovan control the Moldovagaz state gas company, which is 50% owned by Gazprom, and a thermal plant in Transdniestria which generates power for both parts of the country.
He described both as “assets that were seized by Russia”.
(Reporting by Alexander Tanas; Writing by Pavel Polityuk, Philippa Fletcher and Ron Popeski; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
