EU blasts Russia for weaponising gas in Moldova

Russia is accused of using gas against Moldova, according to the European Union’s head of foreign policy.

Russia is using “gas as a weapon” in waging a “hybrid war” against the small southeast European country, Kaja Kallas said late on Tuesday, pledging the bloc’s support. Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, which enjoys strong links with Moscow, has been without gas since the beginning of the year amid a financial spat between Chisinau and Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom.

On the social media platform X, Kallas wrote overnight, “Russia continues to use gas as a weapon and Moldova is once more a target of its hybrid warfare.” Moldova continues to be resilient and well-connected to European energy networks thanks to EU support.

Moldova is once more the target of Russia’s hybrid warfare, and it uses gas as a weapon.

Moldova continues to be resilient and well-connected to European energy networks thanks to EU support.

I reaffirmed our unwavering support for Moldova in my conversation with @DorinRecean.

For decades, Transnistria, a mainly Russian-speaking breakaway region along the Ukrainian border, had been receiving Russian gas via Ukraine.

Following Kyiv’s refusal to extend a transit agreement with Moscow that had endured nearly three years of hostilities, that route was canceled on January 1st, 2018.

Gazprom, the Moldovan government claims, has refused to provide Transnistria with contracted gas via an alternative and tried Transbalkan route, which the government blames for the crisis.

Gazprom has attributed the disruption to Moldovan unpaid debts, which Moscow claims are worth $709 million. Moldova disputes that claim, saying that an international audit supported its position.

In a message to Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean, Kallas stated in her post that she reaffirmed the EU’s “unwavering solidarity with Moldova.”

The disruption is now affecting more than 51, 000 households in Transnistria. An estimated 1, 500 apartment buildings have no heating, and the functioning of the economy is also under pressure.

Regime change

Since the end of the Soviet Union, Transnistria’s thin sliver of land has de facto been under pro-Russian control, but it is regarded as a part of Moldova internationally.

Moldova claims that Russia is blaming Moscow for the crisis, which it claims Russia has stoked to undermine the government ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections.

In an online briefing, Recean stated that the purpose of all of this is to cause instability in the region and, crucially, to influence the results of Moldova’s parliamentary elections. “They want to have a pro-Russian government,”