Moldova faces a security crisis after its breakaway enclave of Transdniestria was cut off from supplies of Russian gas, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday.

Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom says it will halt gas supplies to Moldova starting on Jan. 1, citing alleged unpaid debt by the east European country.

Russia maintains about 1,500 troops there and long provided free gas. That ended on New Year’s Day when Ukraine, nearly three years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion, refused to extend a transit deal letting Russia pump gas across its territory to central and eastern Europe.