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.

The pro-Russian breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, left without Russian gas supplies no longer transiting through neighbouring Ukraine, faced longer periods of rolling power cuts on Saturday,

Russian-backed separatists split from Moldova as the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, winning de facto independence for the region of some 450,000 people known as Transdniestria. Russia maintains about 1,