• Industrial production has screeched to a halt in Transnistria after Russian gas flows were halted.
• The breakaway region of Moldova is heavily dependent on cheap Russian gas flowing via Ukraine.
• But Ukraine ended its agreement to transit the gas, plunging the region into an energy crisis.

A breakaway region of Europe has been forced to halt almost all industrial production after Ukraine ended the transit of Russian gas through its territory.

"All industrial enterprises are idle, with the exception of those engaged in food production — that is, directly ensuring food security," Transnistria's first deputy prime minister, Sergei Obolonik, said, per Reuters.

Obolonik said it was "too early" to say what will unfold, but the region risks "irreversible" changes if the problem isn't quickly resolved.

"Enterprises will lose their ability to start up," he added.

Transnistria, an autonomous region that broke off from Moldova in the 1990s, has been one of the hardest-hit following Ukraine's decision not to renew a gas transit agreement with Russia on January 1.

The pipeline's shutdown marked the end of an era for Russia's oldest gas route to Europe.

Almost a hundred large- and medium-sized industrial enterprises operate in Transnistria, according to its chamber of commerce.

The region is pro-Russia and is largely Russian-speaking. It hosts about 1,500 Russian soldiers, ostensibly on national security grounds.

In December, its government said that it was "making every possible effort to maintain natural gas supplies" in the face of the Ukrainian decision, and blamed Moldova for not taking joint steps to ensure the supply.

But on Monday, local energy company Tirasteploenergo warned that it would cut heating and hot water to homes starting January 1, reserving supplies for hospitals.

The company advised families to seal drafts and gather in a single room to save heat.

It suggested sealing cracks in windows and balcony doors, hanging blankets over them, and putting all family members in one room, warning that temperatures could drop to 23 degrees Fahrenheit in the capital, Tiraspol.

Some towns have set up "heating points" and local authorities are offering hotlines to help people find firewood, the BBC reported.

The region's leader, Vadim Krasnoselsky, has said that it has up to 20 days of gas reserves, and that energy production has switched from gas to coal, according to Reuters.

He added that there should be electricity for households through January and February.

Ahead of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe sourced around 40% of its gas from Russia. But the war sparked an unprecedented resolve to reduce countries' dependence on Russian energy.

Many have cut their reliance and found alternative, often more expensive, sources of gas.

The loss of Russian gas will badly impact Transnistria's economy, since the region has been getting gas basically free of charge from Russian state-owned giant Gazprom.

Moldova, an EU candidate country, could also be badly hit, as it gets 80% of its energy from a power plant in Transnistria. It faces a major hike in energy costs amid plans to switch sources, the BBC reported.

Other European nations could also be badly impacted, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has appealed to the EU to find a way to keep Russian gas flowing via Ukraine.

"Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU — but not on the Russian Federation," Fico said in a New Year's address.

• Even while at war, Ukraine has been piping gas for Russia to European customers.
• But that arrangement, which dates back to the fall of the Soviet Union, has now expired.
• Russia earned an estimated $5 billion from the transits in 2024, with Ukraine getting up to $1 billion.

Russia is no longer able to send natural gas to Europe through Ukraine's pipelines after a five-year deal, struck before the war began, expired on Wednesday.

It marks the end of a long-standing arrangement that used Ukraine as a conduit for westbound Russian gas — an agreement that continued even as full-scale war broke out in 2022.

European countries that received that gas, such as Slovakia and Austria, were paying Russia for this energy. Reuters calculated in December that the Russian economy would earn about $5 billion in 2024 alone from piping gas through Ukraine.

The news agency also estimated that Kyiv stood to receive between $800 million to $1 billion over that year from collecting transit fees.

But Ukraine had signaled for months that it planned to let the deal expire on January 1, 2025, and it's now made good on that pledge.

"When Putin was presented with the Russian presidency more than 25 years ago, the annual gas transit through Ukraine to Europe totaled more than 130 billion cubic meters. Today, it equals 0," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote.

Ukraine's energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said the transit deal ceased because of national security reasons.

The Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom confirmed on Wednesday that its energy flows through Ukraine had stopped, citing "repeated and explicit refusal of the Ukrainian side to extend these agreements."

The now-defunct Ukrainian-Russian deal laid bare the complexities of the war and its political consequences in Europe, with European Union nations struggling to reduce their reliance on Russian energy even as they supplied arms to Ukraine and tried to sanction Moscow.

And as thousands died every week amid bitter fighting in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kursk, gas flowing through the same areas allowed both Kyiv and Moscow to profit off each other's goods and facilities.

Ukraine has piped Russian gas to Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and energy customers initially expressed concerns that they wouldn't be able to find an alternative supply in time if the deal expired.

Slovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, criticized Kyiv's decision in a New Year's address, saying cutting off cheap Russian gas to Europe would create a "drastic impact" on EU nations but not hurt Russia.

Austria, on the other hand, cut ties with Gazprom in December, accusing Russia of blackmailing the Austrian gas company OMV by using energy as a bargaining chip over European support of Ukraine.

Losing Austria as a customer was yet another blow to Moscow's gas industry as Europe weans itself off its Russian energy supply.

The EU said in March that about 8% of its natural gas came from Russia in 2023, down from 40% in 2021.

Since the war began, the US and Norway have emerged as two of the biggest winners among natural-gas suppliers. The EU said gas purchases from the US in 2023 had tripled since 2021, filling nearly 20% of the union's gas imports.

Some countries on the continent, such as Hungary, an EU member led by a president who keeps close ties with Moscow, still have access to Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, which runs along the Black Sea to the Balkans.

Moldova, which isn't an EU member state, and its separatist-controlled territory, Transnistria, are expected to be hit hard by the cessation of the Ukraine-Russia deal, with the country's largest power plant historically reliant on Russian gas.

Correction: January 2, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated Robert Fico's title. He's the prime minister of Slovakia, not the president.