The head of Rossotrudnichestvo Yevgeny Primakov said that the extinguished Eternal Flame in Chisinau is an attempt by Moldova to put pressure on Russia to obtain cheap gas, and also thanked the local residents who came to the monument with candles. He announced this on Friday, October 22, in his Telegram channel.
“We are grateful to those citizens of Moldova that they did not accept such a decision of the authorities and came to the monument with candles so that the Eternal Flame would continue to burn,” he wrote.
Primakov stressed that the Moldovan authorities extinguished the fire at the memorial, explaining this by “saving gas.” He noted that Rossotrudnichestvo is ready to close gas bills for the Eternal Flame and fulfill its duty to the fallen heroes for the Moldovan state.
“Obviously, in this way Chisinau tried to put pressure on Moscow: give us cheap gas, or this is what we can do,” he said, adding that the country’s leadership “changed its mind” and explained the shutdown with some “technical reasons”.
As reported in the evening, on October 22, the Prime Minister of Moldova Natalia Gavrilitsa, the gas supply to the Eternal Flame in Chisinau was restored. Earlier, the Moldovan Ministry of Defense announced that it was forced to extinguish it due to low pressure in the gas transmission network, and thus the Eternal Flame did not burn for several hours.
The authorities’ decision sparked public outrage. So, the former president of the republic Igor Dodon called the incident a shame, and residents of Chisinau and public figures with candles began to gather at the memorial of military glory “Eternity”.
On October 22, economic analyst Tatyana Laryushina said that without a contract with Gazprom, Moldova is not serious to talk about “settling” the energy crisis. According to her, the situation of 1999 is being repeated and the reasons then were the same: “corruption, incompetence and immaturity of the state elite.”
However, on Friday evening it became known that the Russian-Moldovan gas negotiations with the participation of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, which lasted two days, ended in vain.
On October 22, Moldova declared a state of emergency for a period of 30 days, from October 22 to November 20, in connection with the crisis in the energy sector. 55 out of 101 deputies from the ruling Action and Solidarity party voted for the decision to declare a state of emergency.
On October 6, Moldovagaz urged customers to cut costs and switch to alternative fuels, since the daily consumption of natural gas in Moldova from October 1 began to exceed the volume of supplies from Russia. The company explained that the drop in pressure in the gas transportation system of Moldovatransgaz LLC is due to covering the shortage of gas imports, which are carried out from the gas reserves of the country’s main gas pipelines.
The gas contract between Moldova and Gazprom expired on September 30 and was temporarily extended until October.
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