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Transdniestria hit hard by severing of gas route

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Industry shut down, people left without heat and hot water

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Residents queue to buy electric stoves and heaters

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Moldova says Russia is creating security crisis

By Mark Trevelyan, Lucy Papachristou and Filipp Lebedev

Jan 3 (Reuters) - The severing of one of Russia's last

gas export routes to Europe is being felt most painfully in a

small, mainly Russian-speaking breakaway region of Moldova that

has for decades looked to Moscow for protection.

Russian-backed separatists split from Moldova as the Soviet

Union collapsed in the early 1990s, winning de facto

independence for the region of some 450,000 people known as

Transdniestria.

Russia maintains about 1,500 troops there and long provided

free gas. That ended on New Year's Day when Ukraine, nearly

three years after Moscow's full-scale invasion, refused to

extend a transit deal letting Russia pump gas across its

territory to central and eastern Europe.

The blow to Transdniestria was immediate. Households'

central heating and hot water were cut off on Wednesday. On

Thursday, the government said all industrial enterprises apart

from food producers had been forced to cease production.

When the gas was cut to his multi-storey apartment complex

in Tiraspol, the main city, Boris, 54, dragged out a Soviet-era

electric stove from his garage. It provides just enough heat to

cook meals and warm the kitchen, while an electric heater warms

his and his wife's bedroom.

"My wife and I have a stable income, and our children will

help out, but what about the old pensioners?" Boris, who

declined to be identified by his full name, told Reuters. "What

will happen to them if their gas stoves turn off?"

Another Tiraspol resident said there was no sense of panic

but people were queuing, sometimes by the dozen, to buy electric

heaters and stoves.

Some locals told Reuters they were concerned that prices for

essential goods such as bread and pasta - as well as blankets -

had shot up since Wednesday.

PAYMENT DISPUTE

Russia had been pumping about 2 billion cubic metres of gas

per year to Transdniestria - including a power plant providing

energy for all Moldova, a country of 2.5 million people that

wants to join the European Union.

Separately from the gas transit dispute with Ukraine,

Russian energy company Gazprom had said on Dec. 28

that it would stop supplying gas to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of

$709 million in unpaid gas debts that Russia says Moldova owes

it. Moldova disputes that, and has put the debt at $8.6 million.

Jonathan Eyal, international director at the RUSI think tank

in London, said Russia's objective was to squeeze Moldova,

foment trouble between the central government and

Transdniestria, and turn an energy crisis into a political one.

He said it was in Moldova's interest to help the separatist

region, whose self-declared independence is not recognised by

any country and whose people it regards as its own citizens. But

it would have to charge for any gas it could send to

Transdniestria, and this could fuel further disputes.

"There is no question that the government would want to

help. The question is whether the separatists will want to

accept the help, and whether this could be a prelude to a much

bigger tussle instead of being the beginning of a potential

cooperative relationship," he said in an interview.

"There is no question in my mind that Moscow now is banking

on the possibility that the crisis would merely accentuate the

separatist movement inside Moldova."

Russia blames Ukraine for the halting of gas transit and

says the United States will benefit - by selling more gas to

Europe. Moscow denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova

but said last month, as the gas cut-off loomed, that it would

take steps to protect its citizens and troops in Transdniestria

and "react adequately to any provocations".

Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday the

cutting of Russian gas to Transdniestria had created a crisis

for his country.

"We treat this as a security crisis aimed at enabling the

return of pro-Russian forces to power in Moldova and weaponising

our territory against Ukraine, with whom we share a 1,200 km

border," he said.

'RUSSIA WILL NOT ABANDON US'

In Transdniestria, authorities are eking out their remaining

reserves of gas and some is still being pumped to apartments so

people can cook food. The main power plant has switched from gas

to coal.

In Rybnitsa, a city of about 50,000 in northern

Transdniestria, 52-year-old Alla said she had lit a fire in one

room of her home and that only "the will of God" would turn her

gas back on.

In Bender, a city of 90,000, Maria Zolotukhina, 32, said her

employer had told her to stay home, where she was using an

electric heater.

She did not know whether she would continue to be paid, but

said she was counting on Russia to come to the rescue.

"We are allies of Russia, no matter what. And we hope that

Russia will not abandon us," she said.

(Additional reporting by Olena Harmash in Kyiv, Writing by Mark

Trevelyan and Lucy Papachristou, Editing by Timothy Heritage)