Whoever wants to see the last Soviet landscape in the “USSR Museum” can go to Transnistria in the next two months. Putin's separatist enclave between Odessa and Chisinau is bankrupt.
Image from Tiraspol
The Transnistrian region remained again with the gas in the pipes. This happened last winter. People no longer receive hot water, and the thermal power plants are closed and sealed by the gas supplier. Only at the stove flies the flame. For five days, Transnistria has entered the “gas saving regime”. The industry has stopped, and only the ambulances can be fed at the gas station. The sad announcement about the entry into the crisis did not make the head of the separatist group in Tiraspol, Vadim Krasnoselski, nor the so-called “prime minister” of Transnistria, Alexandr Rozenberg, but Pseudo “Minister of Economic Development” of Transnistria, Sergei Obolonik. The shade is important and has to do with what is to happen in Transnistria in the next 45 days. Obolonik said that the gas deficit is temporary and appeared due to “technical difficulties”. He also gave assurances that simple people will not be affected, but the next day the hot water delivery was stopped.
The Kremlin relied on taking over control over Chisinau
In fact, gas in Transnistria does not come, because no payments can be made for the volumes delivered, due to the international sanctions imposed on Russia. We remind that, last winter, after leaving the residents of Transnistria in darkness and cold for more than a month, in February 2025, Russia partially resumed gas deliveries through an opaque, temporary, extremely dubious scheme, with offshore companies from Hungary and Dubai-a scheme that Chisinau accepted. The scheme has cost Russia extremely expensive so far. It was provided to operate only until the parliamentary elections of September 28 in the Republic of Moldova. The Kremlin hoped to take over political control over Chisinau and, through a loyal governance, to reopen the energy schemes in favor of Tiraspol, putting the Moldovans to finance separatism again-as has happened in the last 34 years, until January 1, 2025, when Chisinau ceased to buy from the central Cuciurgan. Tiraspol. Subsequently, Chisinau has permanently removed from the circuit and Moldovagaz-the daughter company of the Gazprom.
But the September elections were won by Pro-European, and the opaque scheme of Russia of Gas of Transnistria can no longer work. Not because of Chisinau. From February 2025 until now, Russia has changed four offshore companies from Arab Emirates to deceive European banks to accept transactions representing the payment for gas delivered to Transnistria. However, due to international sanctions imposed on Russia, no European bank now accepts these transactions. Therefore, gas in Transnistria does not come because the payment for them can no longer be made. Explained the situation the member of the Board of Directors of “Energocom” from Moldova, Alexandru Slusari: “A company from Emirate is addressed to a European bank: – Here we pay for the gas consumed by Tiraspol – OK – Say the Bank – Show me the contract with Tiraspol. Who delivers gas to Moldovagaz?
So, from February 2025 to recently, someone from Dubai paid the gas consumed by Transnistria without any contractual basis – some absolutely illogical and extremely dubious transactions that the EU banks no longer accept.
Separatist regime surrender is inevitable
The separatist regime from Tiraspol simply has no solutions. The economy of the enclave is in collapse. After Chisinau stopped buying electricity in Transnistria, the Cuciurgan central, which ensures most of the separatist budget turned into a useless iron pile. Since the Soviet period, the Transnistrian separatist pyramid was built on two pillars: free gas provided by Russia and smuggling through Ukraine. Now free gas does not come, and the Transnistrian segment of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border has closed with Ukrainian tanks on the first day of Russia's invasion on Ukraine (for fear of Odessa from the illegally stationed Russian army). Thus, smuggling corridors have closed. This means that, economically, Transnistria is 100% dependent on Chisinau. In July 2025, the Russian oligarch with Ukrainian citizenship Viktor Gușan, the economic master of Transnistria, had to make money from his own “prison” to finance the separatist budget, because there was no money to ensure the circulation of public transport. Since then the situation has only worsened.
“Now everything we can talk to them (with separatist leaders – NN) is the capitulation,” says Alexandru Slusari. “Unknown at this time is whether the separatists are willing to discuss the surrender with Chisinau or will execute one last Kremlin command to destabilize this region between Odessa and Chisinau. So it is clear that the end of separatism in Moldova is close. The question is how this end will manifest,” Slusari argues.
Another problem is that even Chisinau is not prepared to abolish Transnistria suddenly. The plan of the Moldovan authorities is the gradual economic reintegration, in order to depreciate the shocks on the economy which was also affected by the neighboring war. The capitulation of the separatist regime would involve an extraordinary plan of sudden reintegration of Moldova, and this is impossible without substantial European help. According to Chisinau's evaluations, the cost would be at least 3 billion euros in the next three years.
The Kremlin wants to replace Krasnoselski with the Ignatiev radical
This economic picture aimed at Transnistria, also has a collateral political element: in about a month and a half in the Transnistrian region “elections” will take place in the “Supreme Soviet” (the so-called “Parliament” in Tiraspol). And according to unofficial information, the Kremlin will try in the next period to get rid of Vadim Krasnoselski and strengthen his positions of the Transnistrian Pseudo-prime minister, Ignatiev vitals, which is much more radical and loyal to the Kremlin. In January 2024, Ukraine opened a criminal case on the behalf of Ignatiev to undermine the constitutional order of Ukraine and “collaboration with the aggressor state.” Ukraine announced in search, therefore Ignatiev can no longer leave Transnistria.
On the other hand, DW sources claim that Krasnoselski, although remains loyal to the Kremlin, would have made, in the last two years, several “rational decisions in favor of peace” and that there would be its communication with Kiev. The hypothesis is also reinforced by the increasing information that crosses in the public space about the blunt relations between Krasnoselski and the KGB camp to the Tiraspol radical attributed to the Ignatiev group.
Vitalie Călugăreanu – DW
