The electricity supply system in the Russian-occupied Moldovan region of Transnistria is under risk of collapse after the halt of Russian gas flow, a high-ranking official of Moldova’s Energy Ministry warned in a Facebook post on Jan.

The head of Moldova’s breakaway region Transnistria has urged residents to burn firewood for heating and warned that blackouts cannot be avoided, after Moscow stopped supplying gas via Ukraine.

A renegade part of Moldova once boasted it would become a Russian-speaking Switzerland. Now without gas, its leader assured residents, “We will not allow a societal collapse.”

Some 1,500 high-rise buildings in Transnistria are currently without heating and hot water, and nearly 72,000 homes are without gas.