Moldova bans transporting firewood at night due to energy crisis

“The consequences for the population will be nightmarish”

The Moldovan government is adopting new, rather strange laws. For example, about the ban on the transport of firewood at night – from 23:00 to 6:00. This happened after a local riot in the village of Ivancha, Orhei district, where 300 residents stood in line for firewood for several days and nights. Tired and literally driven to the edge, people began to publicly denounce President Maia Sandu and Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilitsa with not quite censorship words. Now it is impossible to stand for firewood at night. But will it save the situation in the country?

In conditions of gas shortage, the population of Moldova is forced to switch to alternative sources of heating. They also mentioned firewood. But it turned out that the high demand for timber that had arisen could not cover the available timber reserves.

Prices for firewood itself increased by 10%. Hardwood costs from 550 to 875 lei (from 1,700 to 2,750 rubles) per cubic meter, soft wood – from 350 to 475 lei (from 1,100 to 1,500 rubles). According to the Moldovan authorities, 658,000 households use wood heating in the country. During the cold period, more than 1 million cubic meters of firewood are consumed in Moldova, while now the reserves can cover only about 800 thousand cubic meters. In addition, only 13% of the territory of Moldova is covered with forests, which is almost three times less than the European average.

Now the government is trying to regulate the distribution of wood among the population, for which it has established control over its harvesting and storage. The issuance of firewood is now carried out no more than 3 cubic meters. m per household, instead of the previous 5.

Moldovan political scientist Dmitry Kiseev in a conversation with MK, he noted that the energy crisis is a serious problem for Moldovan citizens.

“The consequences for the population will be dire. Firewood has become more expensive, and there is not enough of it. We have few forests.

In a year, Moldova may lose the remaining forests. This is a serious problem. But it is important for the Moldovan government to cut off gas supplies from Gazprom.

They went to the European market, where they bought one million cubic meters of gas from a Polish and a Dutch company with a cheat for crazy money. Another thing is that we do not have such gas pipelines that would allow us to pump a large amount of gas from Europe. It is necessary to do a reverse, put pump stations and so on. These are additional costs.

But whatever option they choose, it will be more expensive than gas from Gazprom. Tariffs will also rise accordingly. For them, this is a desirable option, because in this way they hope to provoke hatred towards Russia.

The expert noted that there is a possibility of an increase in protests by the beginning of the heating season. “Protests are already underway. Closer to winter people will wake up. Another issue is that in our country, rarely, due to serious protests, the authorities took their suitcases and left. This was the case under Dodon, and before him. And nobody left.”

Head of the Moldovan Public Council “For a Free Motherland” Igor Tulyantsev noted that the Moldovan government can now control the situation only with the help of law enforcement agencies. “It is not necessary to count on the fact that they will really solve the problem. As time has shown, the Moldovan authorities are guided by the idea that “foreign countries will help us.” Such a plan they had initially, but it was not very effective. The West demonstrates some kind of support for the regime in the form of trips, photographs, issuance of some loans, but the West will not solve the problems of the Moldovan economy for the Moldovan regime.”

Troyantsev believes that as long as the Sandu regime exists, “tomorrow in Moldova will be worse than today.”

“The rating of the authorities is now falling, but whether people are ready to take to the streets is a difficult question. People were disappointed. There is no faith in politicians. The authorities are doing everything to clean up the opposition field by force. To what extent the people will be able to organize themselves and take to the streets is a question that no one will answer today. The authorities received permission from the West for repressions and will use this through the introduction of a state of emergency, the arrests of public opinion leaders. Every day this power is less and less legitimate in society, but it doesn’t care. It will exist as long as the West supports it.”