The smooth expiry of Ukraine’s Russian gas transit agreement on January 1 should have been the welcome conclusion to a long chapter in Europe’s turbulent energy partnership with Moscow.
Contrary to doom-and-gloom predictions of soaring energy bills, prices have been falling, and Europe’s energy infrastructure is adapting well.
Encouraging as it may seem, it may just be the calm before the storm.
Winter has barely begun, and the EU is already braced for a sequence of possible crises. In the worst possible case, these would overlap just as the weather turns colder over a longer period.
The most imminent risk is a humanitarian crisis in Transnistria after Russia cut gas supplies.
The most worrying, however, is a possible attack on the Baltic countries’ electricity infrastructure just as they prepare to unplug from the Russian grid once and for all.
Since the start of the year, Moscow has cut gas exports to Transnistria, one of its puppet states, leaving the 350,000 Russian-speaking population to endure closed services like schools and lengthy power cuts.
As the gas coming in via Ukraine stopped on 1 January, Russia could have made alternative arrangements to import gas via a southern route but refused to do so.
To stave off a political and humanitarian crisis, Moldovan companies on the other side of the River Nistru offered to buy gas from other markets and supply it themselves.
The authorities in Tiraspol refused, opting to suffer as they awaited Russian help, which has so far not arrived.
By falsely insisting the crisis was caused by the Moldovan authorities, Russia’s endgame in Transnistria is to trigger political turmoil ahead of parliamentary elections and ensure the current pro-EU government loses to Kremlin-friendly parties. The pro-Western President Maia Sandu only narrowly won reelection in November.
Such an outcome would allow Russia to regain influence in the country and increase pressure on Ukraine from the west and along the northwestern Black Sea coast.
Russia is willing to risk a crisis so severe that Transnistrians will be forced out of their homes in search of warmth in Moldova or the EU. That might force Ukraine to restore supplies to Transnistria, which would please the Kremlin-friendly governments in Slovakia and Hungary. They have been lobbying hard for the continuation of the transit of cheap Russian energy.
Robert Fico, Slovakia’s pro-Kremlin prime minister, has already persuaded the EU to set up a trilateral commission involving the European Commission, Ukraine, and Slovakia, complaining his country stands to lose millions of euros if deprived of Russian gas.
This is an exaggeration. Like Transnistria, Slovakia could easily make alternative arrangements, which would lead to a paltry €3/MWh (about $3.10) monthly increase in household bills. Fico’s behavior is therefore clearly political.
Of greater possible concern is the expected synchronization of the Baltic countries with the European energy grid scheduled for early February.
Just like Ukraine, which unplugged from the Russian system hours before the start of the all-out war, the three countries fear disconnection from the former Soviet grid will bring reprisals from the Kremlin.
They have been planning for years to sever the last ties keeping them connected to Russia and its European exclave, Kaliningrad. In the past year, there has been a spate of attacks on energy and telecommunication infrastructure in the Baltic Sea that has put these countries, as well as NATO, on full alert.
Susanne Nies, an EU-based energy expert who has been following the Baltic EU synchronization for years, told this author it was possible that the attack on a power cable connecting Estonia to Finland by a vessel belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in December may be linked to the upcoming European grid synchronization.
However, the risks are not only related to further acts of sabotage in the runup to the scheduled coupling with the European grid.
Russia could also unleash a widespread disinformation campaign claiming the Baltic countries’ decision to unplug from its power lines jeopardized the security of Kaliningrad and chose to plunge its population into the dark as it has in Transnistria.
In reality, the exclave has sufficient electricity generation capacity to operate in isolation from the rest of Europe, a fact acknowledged by Russian authorities themselves.
Nevertheless, the Kremlin maintains a keen interest in weakening its democratic neighbors.
The irony is that although Europe is well supplied and should not face any major problems meeting peak winter demand, any combination of crises could send markets into a frenzy, pushing up prices and spreading social discontent.
The only way to counter Russia’s malign influence is for European countries to work closely together in countering disinformation, clamping down on blackmail, and making sure the lights stay on.
Dr. Aura Sabadus is a senior energy journalist writing for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider. She is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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