Officials say that the breakaway region of Moldova will face new power outages on Saturday.
Local authorities have confirmed that power cuts will continue in Transdniestria on Saturday. The region, which is a breakaway Moldovan region, has been left without Russian supplies after Ukraine decided not to renew a contract for Russian transit gas.
After the expiration of the transit agreement, Kyiv refused to do business with Moscow.
Transdniestrian officials announced that the first rolling blackouts had begun on Friday night.
The region that is mainly Russian-speaking, located along the Moldova-Ukraine frontier and that split from Moldova in 1990, received Russian gas through Ukraine and used it for electricity production.
According to the official Telegram channel of Transdniestria’s government, power will be cut off for three hours in several districts between 2 p.m. (1200 GMT), and 5 p.m.
Vadim Krsnoselsky, the self-styled leader of the enclave, had said earlier that power cuts would be inevitable. He claimed that the region has enough gas to last 10 days in the north, and twice that in the south. He did not mention if he had any plans for a source of supplies afterward.
Krasnoselsky announced on Telegram on Saturday that blackouts may be extended by four hours on Sunday.
Russia denies that it uses gas to coerce Moldova and accuses Kyiv of refusing to renew a gas transit agreement.
Moldova produces around 60% of the gas it needs and imports the rest from Romania. But the Transdniestria power cuts are a problem for Moldova particularly because the enclave is home to a power plant which provides most of the power for government-controlled areas of Moldova at a fixed and low price.
The Prime Minister Dorin Recan said that his country was facing a crisis of security after Transdniestria imposed rolling blackouts. However, he added that the Chisinau Government had also prepared alternative arrangements with a mix of electricity imported from Romania and domestic production.
Moldova claims that Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, could have supplied gas without going through Ukraine but chose not to. Gazprom announced on Dec. 28, even before the suspension of gas supplies via Ukraine, that it would stop exports to Moldova as of Jan. 1, due to what Russia claims are $709 million in unpaid Moldovan bills.
Moldova disputes this and puts the figure at 8,6 million dollars.
(source: Reuters)