The rise in the price of electricity and gas, derived from the escalation of hostilities with Moscow, has turned the Republic of Moldova into a collateral victim of the war in Ukraine.
A year ago, at her home in Odesa, 84-year-old Klaudia Koachenko heard the roar of the first bombs (those that still rob her of sleep today) and felt that she would die if she did not flee. It was not a metaphor; Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Ella Klaudia phoned the only person who could help her and who, at that time and for the last twenty years of her life, she had been in Moldova: her daughter, Nadezhda Shchur.
“I picked up the phone and I couldn't and didn't want to believe it. I never thought something like this could happen. I worried a lot about my parents, ”says Nadezhda, sitting in the living room of her house in Stefan Voda, a rural town in southeastern Moldova, located 100 kilometers from the Odessa region of Ukraine. On February 25, 2022, one day after the start of the war, her parents drove to the border, where she was going to pick them up. "It was hard. It was very cold and they had to walk a long distance,” explains Nadezhda. The collapse of cars at the border was immense. They abandoned the vehicle and walked the last few kilometers to Moldova.
Like Klaudia and her husband, 765,011 Ukrainian residents have fled to Moldova since the war began, of whom 108,885 remain in the country, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur). Most of the refugees arriving in Moldova do so from Odessa and Mikolaiv, cities close to the border. Some of them have been living in refugee accommodation centers for a year and others, like the Koachenkos, live with host families.
In addition to suffering post-traumatic stress from abandoning their homes and leaving family members behind - some of them dead or missing - these refugees are now facing an economic and energy crisis, aggravated by the escalation of the conflict in the neighboring country.
With a GDP per capita of 5,230.7 euros, an annual inflation rate that last January reached 27.31%, and a growing depopulation that began in the post-Soviet era, this country of 2.59 million inhabitants It is the third poorest in Europe.
Moldova is heavily dependent on Russia for energy, which supplies 70% of its electricity. The separatist region of Transnistria – where the Russian gas supply line runs and where the thermal power plant that supplies electricity to the rest of the country is located – has halved its supply since the start of the war. In addition, the country stopped receiving the remaining 30% of electricity from Ukraine in October due to the constant impact of Russian bombing on the Ukrainian electrical infrastructure.
Power outages, which have left the capital Chisinau without power up to five times in the past year, and supply problems have sent prices of electricity, gas and basic goods skyrocketing. The population faces serious difficulties in paying bills and is almost completely dependent on government aid.
“My pension is 115.28 euros and that of my parents, 110.26 euros. We try to save as much as we can, but we spend most of the money on bills. Last month the electricity and gas bill was 250.60 euros. The price has gone up a lot in the last few months. Now, instead of turning on the heating, we use four blankets to cover my father,” laments Shchur. Months ago his father was in a "vegetable" state and they decided to condition the kitchen as a room to concentrate on the day to day in that room of the house and reduce spending.
Currently, Moldovans receive a government aid of 110.26 euros to pay the bills. “At the beginning, when we still didn't receive the aid, we got into debt. We didn't have electricity or gas, because we couldn't pay for them. Now, the aid is making things a bit easier for us”, says Shchur. But nobody knows if the Government will extend this measure, scheduled until March.
Government aid is insufficient for families like Shchur's to get by. For this reason, humanitarian organizations such as Action Against Hunger are essential to mitigate the impact of both crises on the population. The emergency group of this NGO deployed a device in the country on March 2 with the aim of providing support both to refugees arriving from Ukraine and to host families and communities. They provide assistance with cash (about 55 euros), food and hygiene products to families upon request.
The day the Koachenkos fled Ukraine they brought some clothes in suitcases and a souvenir from life: a portrait of when they were still young, painted in oils, which now hangs above their heads. They didn't need more, they soon learned what war means. They both survived World War II when they were six and ten years old. But they did not believe that the current conflict would last that long.
Klaudia would prefer not to hear anything more about the war, because it relives the trauma and makes her feel deeply sad. But she stays in the living room to listen to her daughter speak to aid workers. While Nadezhda says goodbye and asks for more help to feed her parents, Klaudia sits alone on the sofa and breaks down crying, probably remembering that day when she, at 84, had to start over.
