Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region cut off heating and hot water to homes on Wednesday after Russia cut off gas supplies to Central and Eastern Europe via Ukraine. The cut off in gas flows was felt immediately in the territory of about 450,000 people, mostly Russian-speaking, which broke away from Moldova in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. “There is no heating, no hot water,” an employee of local energy company Tilaste Pronergo told Reuters by phone. Gas supplies were cut off early Wednesday following the expiration of a gas transport agreement between warring neighbors Russia and Ukraine. Transnistria leader Vadim Krasnoselskiy said the situation was “not easy, but overall we were prepared.”
Amid the 34-month war, the flow of Russian gas through Ukraine has stopped after Kiev refused to extend a transit agreement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday described the end of gas shipments as “one of the biggest defeats for Moscow.” He said it was now Europe’s “joint mission” to support Moldova “in this energy transition.” Russia was pumping about 2 billion cubic meters of gas a year to Transdniestria, including power plants that provide energy to all of Moldova, a country of 2.5 million that wants to join the European Union. .
Moldova said it was taking steps to reduce energy consumption by at least a third. The company plans to meet 38% of its demand with domestic production, including 10% from renewable energy, and import the remaining 62% from neighboring Romania. Ukraine is attacking countries that still buy Russian energy and fuel Russia’s war machine, a decision that has provoked mixed reactions in Europe. Slovakia, which relies on Russian gas, condemned the move. Slovak Prime Minister Roberto Fico, who has moved Bratislava closer to Moscow since returning to power in 2023, said: “The suspension of gas transport through Ukraine will have a dramatic impact on all of us in the EU, but Russia It does not affect the Commonwealth.”
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian government and the country’s largest bank, Sberbank, to build cooperation with China in the field of artificial intelligence. Putin’s instructions were published on the Kremlin’s website on Wednesday, three weeks after Russia announced it would work with BRICS partners and other countries to develop AI. As a result of Western sanctions aimed at restricting Russia’s access to the technology needed to sustain the war with Ukraine, the world’s major microchip producers have stopped exporting to Russia and AI ambitions were severely limited.
