The prime minister of Moldova's separatist Transdniestria region said on Monday that the abrupt curtailment of Russian gas supplies that plunged the region into an energy crisis has also shattered both its exports and imports.

The cutoff, prompted by Ukraine's refusal to renew an agreement allowing Russian gas to transit through Ukraine, has led to daily blackouts in the pro-Russian region of some 350,000 people and disruptions in heating and water supplies.

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.

Vadim Krasnoselskyi, the president of the Russian-backed separatist sliver on Moldova’s eastern flank, said in a message on Telegram on Friday that “1,500 multi-story apartment buildings have no heating and hot water. Almost 72,000 private households have no gas. One hundred and fifty gas boiler houses have been shut down.”

Gazprom said it would pump a reduced flow of gas to Europe via Ukraine the day before a transit agreement with Kyiv is set to expire, Reuters reported Tuesday.

The state-controlled energy giant said it would pump 37.2 million cubic meters of gas on Dec. 31, down from 42.4 million cubic meters the previous day, before flows drop to zero at midnight when the five-year transit agreement expires.

More and more people, including Pope Francis, are asking Ukraine to drop its defense and sit at the negotiation table with Russia. Citing the stalemate on the battlefield and Russia’s superior resources, they urge Ukraine’s leadership to consider a deal. What exactly that would involve is largely left unsaid. But it would clearly involve freezing the conflict, resigning Ukraine’s occupied territory to Russia in exchange for an end to the fighting.

The governor of Moldova's pro-Russia Gagauzia region has reportedly become the second regional leader from the Eastern European nation to request the "protection" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Gagauzia Governor Eugenia Gutul accused her country's pro-European Union (EU) leadership of "oppressing" pro-Kremlin residents of her region during a meeting with the speaker of Russia's Senate in Moscow on Friday, according to Reuters.

Pro-Russian rebels in a separatist sliver of Moldova have asked President Vladimir Putin to protect their region from what they claim are threats from Moldova’s government.

Transnistria, which illegally split from Moldova as the Soviet Union crumbled, has remained firmly within the Kremlin’s orbit while Moldova, which borders Ukraine, is bidding to join the European Union.

Russia pledged on Wednesday that it will "carefully" consider Transnistria's request for protection.

The comments came after officials in Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region in Moldova, held a meeting in which they called on Russia for help with security.