Moldova eyes energy lever to topple Kremlin puppet regime in Transnistria

For the first time, Moldova can cut an energy link to its breakaway territory. Yet doing so risks Moscow’s threats and a possible humanitarian crisis.

For the first time in three decades, Moldova thinks it finally has the leverage to kick Russia out of the country.

But it comes with a quandary: how to do that without unleashing a humanitarian crisis on its own citizens.

Since gaining independence in the 1990s, Moldova has been locked in a frozen conflict with Moscow over Transnistria, a Kremlin-backed separatist region near Moldova’s eastern border with over a quarter of a million people.

The face-off has been tense, but maintained by a powerful connection: Moldova gets cut-rate Russian energy via Transnistria, which gets hundreds of millions of euros a year in return. The link allowed Russia to preserve control over the strategic strip of land along the Ukrainian border, where its troops are stationed despite Moldova’s objections.

That dynamic is changing, however. Moldova in recent years has integrated with Europe under pro-EU President Maia Sandu. Brussels has offered millions of euros and more links to its energy supplies as part of a yearslong process to get the country, one of Europe’s poorest nations, ready for EU membership.