Blankets and blackouts

The sudden halt in gas supplies in January 2025 left over 350,000 people, including more than 6,000 displaced Ukrainians, without reliable heating.

With no contingency plans in place, entire communities were forced to adapt overnight. Families layered blankets and clothes, while others resorted to burning household items to generate warmth and hot water.

Schools and public spaces struggled to remain operational, and access to essential services, including healthcare and food distributions, became increasingly difficult.

Before the crisis, the Transnistrian region of Moldova relied on Russian gas to power the Cuciurgan power plant, which supplied electricity to the region and beyond. When gas supplies stopped, the power plant switched to coal, but reserves ran out within weeks.

Rolling blackouts lasting up to five hours began, and soon, nearly every household was affected. In homes across the region, centralised heating systems shut down. With no insulation in many buildings, the cold settled in fast.

In February, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Moldova conducted an assessment to evaluate the immediate aftermath of the energy crisis and the needs on the ground. We found that at least 78 per cent of households had lost their primary heating source, while 99 per cent experienced power outages lasting several hours each day. Food prices soared by up to 49 per cent, leaving families with impossible choices: buy firewood or buy bread.

Heat and health

For Liudmila, 71, and her sister Svetlana, 73, the crisis was another hardship added to a life of displacement. Originally from Odesa in southern Ukraine, they had fled the war in 2022 and settled in Transnistria, only to find themselves once again facing uncertainty.

“We wrapped ourselves in anything we could find – coats, scarves, newspapers – to keep warm,” says Liudmila. “We have survived war, but this winter tested us in ways we never expected.”

The sisters, with Svetlana already weakened by cancer, were forced to ration food and spent most of their time indoors to avoid the biting cold.

When Liudmila attempted to go outside to feed the birds, she collapsed from the shock of the temperature change and had to be helped back to the apartment.

Homework by candlelight

The energy crisis hit another Kateryna and her family harder than they’d expected. Kateryna, a 41-year-old mother of three from Odesa, had fled the war in Ukraine and settled in Bender, Transnistria’s second largest city. There she hoped to find some peace and relief from the energy disruptions caused by the war.

But the same crisis followed them into Moldova. “When the power was on, I would rush to the kitchen to cook something before it went off again,” she recalls. “We never knew when the lights would go out. One side of the street had electricity, the other did not. It was like flipping a coin every morning.”

For Kateryna’s children, school became a daily struggle. With only one computer at home and unpredictable blackouts, homework was done in shifts, often by candlelight. “Everything was online,” she explains. “You had to write essays, send assignments, check information – but when there’s no electricity, no internet, how can you do that?”

The cold seeped in. Without heating, condensation built up on the windows and walls, making the apartment damp and triggering health issues for her children. “My younger two children have allergies like me,” she said. “My daughter developed eczema, and my son got a rash.”

As winter gripped the Transnistrian region, many families turned to gas stoves, electric heaters, or improvised wood-burners to keep warm.

Since January, 54 fires linked to unsafe heating have been reported. Eight people were poisoned by stove fumes – two of them fatally. Seventeen others suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from gas appliances, leading to two more tragic deaths.

With fuel prices soaring and safer options out of reach, families are being forced to make dangerous choices simply to endure the winter.