Updates since I started working on this video: Transnistria has sent a diplomatic mission to Russia, and claims to have secured gas supplies as humanitarian aid, but nothing has been delivered so far, and there has been no confirmation from Moscow. The government in Chisinau has taken a more threatening stance towards the government in Tiraspol, pressuring it to either solve the humanitarian crisis, or to get out of the way, and let Moldova and Ukraine deliver the energy and humanitarian supplies. I regard this change of tone as confirmation for my idea that Moldova is trying to take advantage of the situation and make the government in Tiraspol fade into irrelevance, as Chisinau takes over the situation. A coal supply chain has been identified, with Ukraine offering to send coal free of charge, in exchange for exports of electricity, as well as offering to send expertise to manage the power plant, and Moldova is pressuring Transnistria to accept. The situation could become *even more weird*, as the power plant which is ostensibly under Russian military control becomes managed by Ukraine, to the benefit of Russia’s enemies. The nameplate capacity of the power plant is huge, on the order of 2000MW or more. If this could be refurbished and operated at full capacity, Moldova could become not only self-sufficient, but even an electricity exporter, not only to Ukraine, but also to Romania, although Romania’s border-carbon taxes might make the coal electricity uncompetitive as compared to its own CCGTs.
Wow, talking of being on top of the news! Thank you very much for a very interesting video that demystified the situation between Russia-Transnistria and Moldova.
2:07 😂Ok it is Ukraine cut the gas, not Rus .This video looks very biased. giving misinformation 2:48 Please don't be a fool.How can Transnestraia get gas if Ukraine blocks gas from Russia? 😂😂Do you think people are stupid?Can't read map And don't know the route of your gas pipes
8:10 Are you serious or fool?😂 So Canada has no sovereignty Because it is a US puppy, they even set a 100% tariff on Chinese cars and don't even have their own car brand. 😂
Also new here. I have been watching for maybe a month. I love that you know what you're talking about and cover interesting topics and current events in the European energy sector! It really does affect us all.
Oh this is weird :) Looks like russian puppet states are loosing it... I feel bad for the people that believed in Moscow and now have to suffer consequences. Let's hope it all ends up OK. And you are right - energy is everything, without it, you are done as individual, as country, as society. So energy independence and self-sufficiency is the key.
Several sources reporting that Cuciurgan power plant can consume anthracite coal only and was tuned to get exactly coal from Donbass which is now unavailable for obvious reason. Perhaps Ukraine has some reserves but otherwise it will be practically impossible to supply it. So gas seems the only option for them
Ukraine offered to supply Coal in talks with Moldova. But obviously I don't know how serious they were. But they would import Electricity in exchange. So it would be a win win even if it were not viable on the free market it is viable for Ukraine. And it would be an even better step to cut out Russia in all of this.
Wow too bad for those Transnistrian government workers and others having reduced incomes/cold dwellings etc-coal+solar seems good to explore!no free Russian coal!?🙃
When it comes to Russia freezing it's own soldiers, it might not be quite true. I can't verify this myself but I've seen claims that a significant portion of the "Russian" soldiers in Transnistria aren't actually Russians from Russia proper and just stationed there. Rather, nowadays a lot of them are actually just locals who also have Russian passports and have taken contracts with the Russian military. I don't know if that's actually true or not but, if it's true, that might explain a portion of Russia's apparent callousness.
Real Russian soldiers and contractors freezing to death in the trenches right now. Kremlin does not care for their lives at all. So, why they should care for Russians feel "uncomfortable" in Transnistria. My guess is that Moscow is callousness in general.
Yes. Claiming and, importantly, maintaining neutrality allows so called "malicious neutrality", like Switzerland until recently, which is pretty profitable.
I put a lot of emphasis on this neutrality because lately, I've been seeing a lot of people lately misinterpret the meaning of neutrality. Like how Americans think Panama should be aligned with the USA, or how Russians think Moldova should be aligned with Russia, just because those were the last occupiers to control the respective countries prior to neutrality. But if they were aligned, then they wouldn't be neutral, and that's what I was hoping to emphasize
@@SizeMichael Panama situation is different though, the canal is vital piece of infrastructure connecting western US ports to eastern ones, and the unbiased shipping pass was one of the main points in deal giving the canal to Panama to run, meaning - no preference to any ships, all are equal yet now, when the supposed drought occurred that led to reduction of canals capacity, they started auctioning passage rights, as far as I know - it used to be that there was a queue when arriving at the canal, you sit in it and then get your passage, but now they allow selling queues, so it can happen that a ship may arrive and queue up for passage, but gets constantly bumped down the order list because someone bought a queue spot before it, and I suspect chinese have been deliberately exploiting this regardless of need to "prioritize" their shipments, and that is what US views as - preferential treatment, and breaking the deal made in 1990ties giving the control of the canal back to Panama there supposedly is increasing chinese presence in Panama, especially around projects involving the canal, and china has been underbidding everything (thanks to chinas subsidies to companies bidding on those contracts), bringing in chinese to work on those projects (part of their bid on said contracts), so chinese are basically ousting any other business while shipping their workforce over to Panama and extracting wealth from it, because the money the government is spending isn't staying in the Panamanian workforce, but is payed to chinese company that is employing chinese workers and as I said - Panama canal is a vital connection between eastern and western US ports, so a matter of national security, and china has been doing everything to destabilize world order, including dropping the recent ai model bombs, which is bursting the ai bubble and causing havoc in financial markets, so the hybrid warfare is very much on the way, very similar to situation with russia and EU before 2022 I guess my point was - transnistria isn't vital to russian national security, it is simply a foothold that allowed to control Moldova an project influence abroad, it was sort of luxury expense, not part of russias oil/gas selling infrastructure, and that transnistrian "company" was making enough people in Moldova, wealth that was then used to keep Moldovas pro russian stance, similar to cheap gas pipelines to Germany - Nordstream
@@SizeMichael Yes, I understand what you're getting at, I just reject the premise. Moldova can align with Russia, with the EU or whoever it wants, it is a sovereign nation. Once you start engaging with that Russian world view, you're then a very small step from 'enforced neutrality' which I'm sure Russia would be happy to see as an outcome for Ukraine. I would have emphasised the fact that Moldova is a sovereign nation, and it is perfectly proper that it organises its affairs how it sees fit. I'm not sure if this is a language barrier thing? I'm British, I think of neutrality as Switzerland, or formerly Sweden. Its a declaration that you won't get involved in other peoples wars. But as Sweden shows, they can change that stance.
Russia wanted to sell to Europe, Ukraine didn't want to transport and Ukraine wanted to transport to Transnistria (?), Russia didn't want to sell. Frankly, my dear, these two sentences don't make any sense. And I don't give it a damn.
No, Ukraine won't transit any Russian gas. On the other hand Transnistria is also connected to Russia via the Turkstream pipeline through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, Russia could still send gas if they wanted to, Ukraine transport is not necessary.
Ukraine does not object to transiting Russian gas per se, it only objects to Russia making money. If Russia wanted to send $600M worth of gas to Transnistria and get $0 in return, like it was the case in the past few years, Ukraine would be absolutely happy to facilitate this "transaction"
Russia had a separate dispute with Moldova over paying for gas. Russia claims that Moldova owes Russia about $709 million in gas payments whereas Moldova claims they only owe something like $9 million (citing some kind of audit).
8:10 Are you serious or fool?😂 So Canada has no sovereignty Because it is a US puppy, they even set a 100% tariff on Chinese cars and don't even have their own car brand. 😂
Well Canada is a weird example... I haven't seen the USA threaten Canada with force until recently, so everything that they aligned with the USA on prior to 2025 was just an agreement between peers, based on goodwill But that seems to be changing now, and if Canada isn't firm in standing its ground, it will absolutely lose its sovereignty.
2:07 😂Ok it is Ukraine cut the gas, not Rus .This video looks very biased. giving misinformation 2:48 Please don't be a fool.How can Transnestraia get gas if Ukraine blocks gas from Russia? 😂😂Do you think people are stupid?Can't read map And don't know the route of gas pipes
I don't understand what people don't understand about this. If Russia wanted to sell $600M worth of gas in exchange for $0, like it did in 2024, Ukraine would be more than happy to facilitate this transaction. Because Russia gets $0. In comparison, the sales to Europe had Russia selling $5B worth of gas for $5B of actual money. That's the part which Ukraine didn't want to facilitate anyone. They're different contracts. Different transactions. Different everything.
@@DeniSaputta Gazprom still could deliver through blue stream and turkstream if they want. They don't want as they have an dispute about payments with Cuciurgan power plant. Moreover, Russia's interest in Cuciurgan power plant diminished drastically since Transnistria and Ukraine were synchronized with the UCTE grid and Moldova got a new interconnection to Romania. As a result Cuciurgan power plant can't be used anymore to blackmail Moldovia or Ukraine. Worthless assets won't be entertained by Moscow, simple, isn't it?
Updates since I started working on this video:
Transnistria has sent a diplomatic mission to Russia, and claims to have secured gas supplies as humanitarian aid, but nothing has been delivered so far, and there has been no confirmation from Moscow.
The government in Chisinau has taken a more threatening stance towards the government in Tiraspol, pressuring it to either solve the humanitarian crisis, or to get out of the way, and let Moldova and Ukraine deliver the energy and humanitarian supplies. I regard this change of tone as confirmation for my idea that Moldova is trying to take advantage of the situation and make the government in Tiraspol fade into irrelevance, as Chisinau takes over the situation.
A coal supply chain has been identified, with Ukraine offering to send coal free of charge, in exchange for exports of electricity, as well as offering to send expertise to manage the power plant, and Moldova is pressuring Transnistria to accept. The situation could become *even more weird*, as the power plant which is ostensibly under Russian military control becomes managed by Ukraine, to the benefit of Russia’s enemies.
The nameplate capacity of the power plant is huge, on the order of 2000MW or more. If this could be refurbished and operated at full capacity, Moldova could become not only self-sufficient, but even an electricity exporter, not only to Ukraine, but also to Romania, although Romania’s border-carbon taxes might make the coal electricity uncompetitive as compared to its own CCGTs.
Wow, talking of being on top of the news! Thank you very much for a very interesting video that demystified the situation between Russia-Transnistria and Moldova.
Sounds like Moldova has become unfathomably based.
2:07 😂Ok it is Ukraine cut the gas, not Rus .This video looks very biased. giving misinformation
2:48 Please don't be a fool.How can Transnestraia get gas if Ukraine blocks gas from Russia? 😂😂Do you think people are stupid?Can't read map And don't know the route of your gas pipes
8:10 Are you serious or fool?😂
So Canada has no sovereignty Because it is a US puppy, they even set a 100% tariff on Chinese cars and don't even have their own car brand. 😂
@DeniSaputta well they could, and are obliged by the contract Gasprom signed to deliver gas through Turkey if the Ukranian pipe gets cut off
Also new here. I have been watching for maybe a month. I love that you know what you're talking about and cover interesting topics and current events in the European energy sector! It really does affect us all.
Underrated channel for sure, keep up the good work, you definitely deserve at least 100k subs
I am a new subscriber. You do really good job with your videos. Keep it up! Greetings from Poland
Oh this is weird :) Looks like russian puppet states are loosing it... I feel bad for the people that believed in Moscow and now have to suffer consequences. Let's hope it all ends up OK.
And you are right - energy is everything, without it, you are done as individual, as country, as society. So energy independence and self-sufficiency is the key.
Several sources reporting that Cuciurgan power plant can consume anthracite coal only and was tuned to get exactly coal from Donbass which is now unavailable for obvious reason. Perhaps Ukraine has some reserves but otherwise it will be practically impossible to supply it. So gas seems the only option for them
I heard that, but I doubt the plant is as picky as the story says
Ukraine offered to supply Coal in talks with Moldova. But obviously I don't know how serious they were. But they would import Electricity in exchange. So it would be a win win even if it were not viable on the free market it is viable for Ukraine. And it would be an even better step to cut out Russia in all of this.
Wow too bad for those Transnistrian government workers and others having reduced incomes/cold dwellings etc-coal+solar seems good to explore!no free Russian coal!?🙃
World is a weird place 😳.
When it comes to Russia freezing it's own soldiers, it might not be quite true. I can't verify this myself but I've seen claims that a significant portion of the "Russian" soldiers in Transnistria aren't actually Russians from Russia proper and just stationed there. Rather, nowadays a lot of them are actually just locals who also have Russian passports and have taken contracts with the Russian military. I don't know if that's actually true or not but, if it's true, that might explain a portion of Russia's apparent callousness.
Russia is known to throw its soldiers into meat grinders. That's not a new thing. 😅
Real Russian soldiers and contractors freezing to death in the trenches right now. Kremlin does not care for their lives at all. So, why they should care for Russians feel "uncomfortable" in Transnistria. My guess is that Moscow is callousness in general.
Does it matter if Moldova is neutral? It can do what it wants (within reason of course, eg not invading its neighbours)
Yes.
Claiming and, importantly, maintaining neutrality allows so called "malicious neutrality", like Switzerland until recently, which is pretty profitable.
@LMB222 I've never heard that term, Google turns up nothing, and what's that got to do with the situation being discussed?
I put a lot of emphasis on this neutrality because lately, I've been seeing a lot of people lately misinterpret the meaning of neutrality.
Like how Americans think Panama should be aligned with the USA, or how Russians think Moldova should be aligned with Russia, just because those were the last occupiers to control the respective countries prior to neutrality.
But if they were aligned, then they wouldn't be neutral, and that's what I was hoping to emphasize
@@SizeMichael Panama situation is different though, the canal is vital piece of infrastructure connecting western US ports to eastern ones, and the unbiased shipping pass was one of the main points in deal giving the canal to Panama to run, meaning - no preference to any ships, all are equal
yet now, when the supposed drought occurred that led to reduction of canals capacity, they started auctioning passage rights, as far as I know - it used to be that there was a queue when arriving at the canal, you sit in it and then get your passage, but now they allow selling queues, so it can happen that a ship may arrive and queue up for passage, but gets constantly bumped down the order list because someone bought a queue spot before it, and I suspect chinese have been deliberately exploiting this regardless of need to "prioritize" their shipments, and that is what US views as - preferential treatment, and breaking the deal made in 1990ties giving the control of the canal back to Panama
there supposedly is increasing chinese presence in Panama, especially around projects involving the canal, and china has been underbidding everything (thanks to chinas subsidies to companies bidding on those contracts), bringing in chinese to work on those projects (part of their bid on said contracts), so chinese are basically ousting any other business while shipping their workforce over to Panama and extracting wealth from it, because the money the government is spending isn't staying in the Panamanian workforce, but is payed to chinese company that is employing chinese workers
and as I said - Panama canal is a vital connection between eastern and western US ports, so a matter of national security, and china has been doing everything to destabilize world order, including dropping the recent ai model bombs, which is bursting the ai bubble and causing havoc in financial markets, so the hybrid warfare is very much on the way, very similar to situation with russia and EU before 2022
I guess my point was - transnistria isn't vital to russian national security, it is simply a foothold that allowed to control Moldova an project influence abroad, it was sort of luxury expense, not part of russias oil/gas selling infrastructure, and that transnistrian "company" was making enough people in Moldova, wealth that was then used to keep Moldovas pro russian stance, similar to cheap gas pipelines to Germany - Nordstream
@@SizeMichael
Yes, I understand what you're getting at, I just reject the premise. Moldova can align with Russia, with the EU or whoever it wants, it is a sovereign nation.
Once you start engaging with that Russian world view, you're then a very small step from 'enforced neutrality' which I'm sure Russia would be happy to see as an outcome for Ukraine.
I would have emphasised the fact that Moldova is a sovereign nation, and it is perfectly proper that it organises its affairs how it sees fit.
I'm not sure if this is a language barrier thing? I'm British, I think of neutrality as Switzerland, or formerly Sweden. Its a declaration that you won't get involved in other peoples wars. But as Sweden shows, they can change that stance.
Russia wanted to sell to Europe, Ukraine didn't want to transport and Ukraine wanted to transport to Transnistria (?), Russia didn't want to sell. Frankly, my dear, these two sentences don't make any sense. And I don't give it a damn.
No, Ukraine won't transit any Russian gas. On the other hand Transnistria is also connected to Russia via the Turkstream pipeline through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, Russia could still send gas if they wanted to, Ukraine transport is not necessary.
Ukraine does not object to transiting Russian gas per se, it only objects to Russia making money.
If Russia wanted to send $600M worth of gas to Transnistria and get $0 in return, like it was the case in the past few years, Ukraine would be absolutely happy to facilitate this "transaction"
Russia had a separate dispute with Moldova over paying for gas. Russia claims that Moldova owes Russia about $709 million in gas payments whereas Moldova claims they only owe something like $9 million (citing some kind of audit).
8:10 Are you serious or fool?😂
So Canada has no sovereignty Because it is a US puppy, they even set a 100% tariff on Chinese cars and don't even have their own car brand. 😂
Well Canada is a weird example...
I haven't seen the USA threaten Canada with force until recently, so everything that they aligned with the USA on prior to 2025 was just an agreement between peers, based on goodwill
But that seems to be changing now, and if Canada isn't firm in standing its ground, it will absolutely lose its sovereignty.
"So Canada has no sovereignty Because it is a US puppy..." Yes, exactly. A little play doll of sorts.
2:07 😂Ok it is Ukraine cut the gas, not Rus .This video looks very biased. giving misinformation
2:48 Please don't be a fool.How can Transnestraia get gas if Ukraine blocks gas from Russia? 😂😂Do you think people are stupid?Can't read map And don't know the route of gas pipes
I don't understand what people don't understand about this.
If Russia wanted to sell $600M worth of gas in exchange for $0, like it did in 2024, Ukraine would be more than happy to facilitate this transaction. Because Russia gets $0.
In comparison, the sales to Europe had Russia selling $5B worth of gas for $5B of actual money. That's the part which Ukraine didn't want to facilitate anyone.
They're different contracts. Different transactions. Different everything.
You clearly can't read a map (there is another pipeline on the map 4:28).
@@SizeMichael It's about geopolitics. Because Ukraine stopped gas shipments To Europe. Russia also stopped delivering gas to Ukraine.
@@DeniSaputta Gazprom still could deliver through blue stream and turkstream if they want. They don't want as they have an dispute about payments with Cuciurgan power plant. Moreover, Russia's interest in Cuciurgan power plant diminished drastically since Transnistria and Ukraine were synchronized with the UCTE grid and Moldova got a new interconnection to Romania. As a result Cuciurgan power plant can't be used anymore to blackmail Moldovia or Ukraine. Worthless assets won't be entertained by Moscow, simple, isn't it?