Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Moldova_Russia
Most recents (13)
#Moldova_Russia: Yesterday's decision by the Moldovan authorities to ban the Sputnik web pages has provoked a harsh reaction from Moscow. Disinformation is the reason invoked by the Moldovan authorities. According to the Russian interpretation,⤵️
Moldova would follow the Western logic of discrediting Russia and generating anti-Russian sentiments. It is worth mentioning that Moscow did not have such an incendiary speech last Dec when the Moldovan side shut down 6 TV channels of which 3 broadcast Russian content. ⤵️
Russia is likely to try to mobilize Russian-speakers in Moldova. The Russian MFA said that there are 200,000 Russians in Moldova and up to 40% of them reside in Chisinau. The protest mood is growing as more categories of citizens have become more critical⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: The new audit by state authorities of Moldova of the Russia-controlled gas operator MoldovaGaz for 2011-2021 revealed a number of issues related to previously unknown debts and overvalued assets. Main takeaways: ⤵️
1) Debts: The revaluation of the company's assets in 2008 worth $325 million was accounted for as MoldovaGaz's share capital instead of being considered debts of the company to the Moldovan state. Now the government will seek to obtain this money; ⤵️
2) Assets: MoldovaGaz owns large parts of the distribution capacity, however it has legal rights to only 35% of the distribution networks. The rest was built with public money and is used by MoldovaGaz for free. According to the audit, the costs for using these distribution ⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: Gazprom will keep the volume of gas supplied to Moldova at the level of 5.7 million m3 for Dec 2022. This constitutes only 56.5% of the previously agreed volumes for this month. Gazprom justifies this decision with false accusations that Ukraine would hinder⤵️
gas flows. On the other hand, as Moldovan govt does not fully comply with the contract signed by it last year related in part to the payment of old debts (around $700 million), Gazprom is using this as an excuse not to supply the full amount of gas, even if the Moldovan part⤵️
pays for it. These days, Moldova’s Court of Audit confirmed the debts of almost 600 million dollars of MoldovaGaz (Moldovan gas operator; 50% of the shares belong to Gazprom) with Russia. Based on the verification of the available documentation, the Court of Audit concluded⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: Putin admitted that he pushed Gazprom to sign the gas contract with Moldova in 2021. The Moldovan govt has been praising the negotiated contract ever since. Putin rejected any involvement in the electricity crisis caused by the decrease of Russian gas supply.⤵️
The Moldovan govt pays for the gas (sometimes with delays, etc.), but it does so anyway and has reiterated on several occasions that it wants to keep the contract because the price formula is beneficial to Moldovan financial possibilities.⤵️
Russia is well aware that Moldova depends on power imports from Transnistria, which needs Russian gas to produce electricity. The created electricity crisis is used by the separatist region that seeks⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: Further details on the ~50 million euro loan that the Moldovan government (through the state-owned company Energocom) is making to the Moldovan gas operator (50% owned by Gazprom) to pay off current Russian gas debts include the following:⤵️
1 ) The money will be disbursed today based on loan and pledge contracts; 2) The maturity of the loan is May 1, 2023, with an interest rate equal to the base rate of the National Bank of Moldova (currently - 21.5% per annum); 3) The guarantee for repayment of the loan and⤵️
interest is the pledge consisting in assigning in favor of the Moldovan government/Energocom 100% participation of Moldovagaz (Gazprom) of the capital in “Moldovatransgaz" and all movable property of the networks of natural gas transport.⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: Latest news: The Moldovan authorities decided not to risk it and will lend money to MoldovaGaz to pay the current debts to Gazprom - about 50 million euros. Therefore, the government decided to stay away from energy disruptions for 3 reasons:⤵️
1) Gas in the EU spot market is still high; 2) The government cannot cover the gas costs for the breakaway region to ensure the production of 70% of the electricity. This implies the risks of socio-economic shocks in the separatist region, as well as in the constitutional⤵️
territories, with implications for the security and stability of Moldova; 3) It is very likely that the Moldovan govt is not convinced that it can buy the full volumes of electricity at a discount from Romania (a strategic partner), potentially including gas.⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: I decided to re-up this thread to explain the gas-related animosities between Moldova and Russia. The highlights are as follows: 1) Moldova signed a contract with Russia in 2021 and continues to consider it advantageous due to the pricing formula;⤵️
2) The volatility of the EU market (manipulated with the Russian contribution) makes gas prices for Moldova unaffordable; 3) Russia will be able to stop the flow of gas due to breach of contract by Moldova (audit and unsolved and controversial old debts); 4) Govt of Moldova⤵️
(PAS-Sandu tandem) is aware that it does not fulfill the contract as agreed but a kind of blackmail to Russia with the separatist region (Transnistria receives gas based on the contract signed by the constitutional authorities);⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: The govt fears that Russia may recruit Moldovans with Russian citizenship to fight in Ukraine under partial mobilization. To counteract the motivation to join the Russian military, the government is also examining the possibility of stripping Moldovan⤵️
citizenship from dual citizens of Moldova and Russia. Discussions are taking place through diplomatic channels to discourage the recruitment of Moldovans (the political contacts are frozen). However, this might have very little success; Russia has restricted all legislation⤵️
related to mobilization, including the citizenship law. That leaves Moldovan citizens with a choice between fighting as Russian soldiers or fleeing back to Moldova via third countries (there are no flights to Moldova after authorities recently banned resuming flights).
#Moldova_Russia: There are voices telling that today’s protests in Moldova are a Russian plan. Such claims need more a careful analysis than a lazy "it's all about Russia.": 1) We have a situation where Russia could hijack the protests (which,⤵️
as Deputy PM Spanu said, brought together people who wanted to protest for various reason). 2) So, in the midst of all this, there are people who are poor and whose living conditions are getting worse (again, let's not all the talk about Russia alone). 3) What is also good to ⤵️
know is that (just as Yanukovych collaborated with Russia during Euromaidan and after) the different non-pro-EU opposition factions are ready to exploit pressures that have Russian origins (gas price) to get rid of the ruling party. 4) Shor and other groups of kleptocrats who ⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: It is something that not many are willing to admit, but the Moldovan government is blackmailing Russia to ensure its political survival and lower the pressure from Moscow. I have raised this point several times and I will briefly explain it again (long THREAD:
1) Last year the govt signed an agreement with Russia, which was recently praised again by President Sandu for the good price formula (in short: the price of gas prevails in summer and global oil price in winter); 2) The Moldovan govt is unwilling to implement ⤵️
last year's agreements with Gazprom and requests further delays in the audit of the gas supplier controlled by Russia (50% - MoldovaGaz). The audit is essential to solve the problem of the debt of $700 million that Russia demands from Moldova and had to be done before May;⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: Russian military's statements about the need to extend the aggression in Ukraine up to the Transnistria region of Moldova in order to protect the Russian minority in the breakaway region of Moldova are based on a deliberate distortion of reality on the ground. ⤵️
The explanation boils down to two substantive arguments: 1) Moldova does not control the separatist region, where the Russian authorities exert effective influence, as the various rulings of the ECtHR have confirmed; 2) The population of the Transnistria region is made up of ⤵️
three equally large ethnic groups of Moldovans, Ukrainians and Russians (30% of the population each). Although de jure all three languages have the status of an official one (Moldovan (representing the Romanian language in Cyrillic), Russian and Ukrainian), the dominant ⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: The protocol of the extended contract with Gazprom was published today. Additionally, Moldovan Minister of Infrastructure Spânu revealed some details about the gas contract. Here is my take on the main details of the contract and the protocol (THREAD/17): ⤵️
1) Although the contract was extended for 5 years, the volumes actually reserved are only for one year (November 2021-October 2022). 2) Only the contract includes the exact price formula. Moldova's energy regulator (ANRE) will receive and approve the contract these days. ⤵️
3) Due to the commercial secret clause, it will not be made public. Nonetheless, the price formula has been released to the public by Russian sources (price formed on the basis of calculations of 70% to 30% of oil & gas spot market prices depending on the warm & cold quarters).⤵️
#Moldova_Russia: The situation around the gas supply did not improve, while the temperature is dropping. As the energy crisis looms, the Moldovan authorities and some segments of the public accuse Russia of triggering the crisis (THREAD):
1) Infrastructure Minister Spanu traveled to Poland on a two-day working trip to discuss gas supply opportunities, namely the purchase of liquefied gas from the LNG terminal in the Baltic Sea (5 bcm). Poland itself will stop buying Russian gas after 2022, investing in⤵️
expanding its LNG capacity to 8 bcm by 2023. 2) On the other hand, there is no signal from Russia. There are strong local views that Moscow is purposefully causing the energy crisis. According to them, after showing initial openness for the extension of the old contract, Russia⤵️
