Russian gas has stopped flowing to EU states via Ukraine after a five-year deal expired, marking the end of a decades-long arrangement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country would not allow Russia to “earn additional billions on our blood”. Poland’s government meanwhile said the cut-off was “another victory” against Moscow. BLACK SEO LINKS, BACKLINKS, SOFTWARE FOR MASS BACKLINKING – TELEGRAM @SEO_LINKK
The European Commission said the EU had prepared for the change and most states could cope. Moldova, which is not in the EU, is already suffering shortages.
Russia can still send gas to Hungary, Turkey and Serbia through the TurkStream pipeline across the Black Sea.
Russian company Gazprom confirmed that gas exports via Ukraine to Europe stopped from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday.
Moscow has transported gas to Europe through Ukraine since 1991.
While immediate effects are light, the strategic and symbolic impact for the whole of Europe is enormous.
Russia has lost an important market, but its president, Vladimir Putin, says EU countries will suffer most.
The EU has significantly reduced imports of gas from Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but a number of eastern member states still depend largely on the supplies, making Russia about €5bn ($5.2bn; £4.2bn) a year.
Russian gas was less than 10% of the EU’s gas imports in 2023, according to the bloc. That figure was 40% in 2021.
But several EU members, including Slovakia and Austria, continued to import significant amounts of gas from Russia.
Austria’s energy regulator said that it did not forecast any disruption as it had diversified sources and built up reserves.
But the end of the transit deal has already caused serious tensions with Slovakia, which is now the main entry point of Russian gas into the EU and earned transit fees from piping the gas on to Austria, Hungary and Italy.
Slovakia has said it will pay more for alternative routes. Its energy regulator announced in early December that Gas prices for consumers would rise in 2025.
Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, said on Wednesday that the end of the deal would have “drastic” consequences for EU countries, but not on Russia, Reuters reported.
On Friday, Fico – who had just made a surprise visit to Moscow for talks with Putin – threatened to stop supplying electricity to Ukraine.
This prompted Zelensky to accuse Fico of helping Putin “fund the war and weaken Ukraine”.
“Fico is dragging Slovakia into Russia’s attempts to cause more suffering for Ukrainians,” the Ukrainian president said.
Poland has offered to support Kyiv in case Slovakia cuts off its electricity exports – supplies that are crucial to Ukraine, whose power plants come under regular attack from Russia.
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there were alternative gas supply routes from international markets, such as a terminal in Croatia and connections from Germany and Poland.
“These routes should be explored so that Russia doesn’t make money on selling oil and gas to the European Union,” Sikorski said.
Poland is importing gas from the US, Qatar and the North Sea, he added.
“As far as I understand, all countries have alternative routes,” he said.
Moldova – which is not part of the EU – could be seriously affected by the end of the transit agreement. It generates much of its electricity at a power station fuelled by Russian gas.
It also supplied the Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria, a small sliver of land sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine where around 300,000 people live.
Russian gas company Gazprom had said on 28 December it would restrict gas to Moldova on 1 January because it said it had failed to fulfil its payment obligations.
Dorin Recean, Moldova’s prime minister, denied the alleged debt and accused Russia of using “energy as a political weapon” in a social media post. He said the move would leave Transnistria “without light and heat in the middle of the winter”.
Heat and hot water was cut off to Transnistria “due to the temporary cessation of gas supplies” at 07:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday, energy company Tirasteploenergo said on Telegram.
It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows, and use electric heaters.
The temperature was due to drop below 0C on Wednesday night. Medical institutions and hospitals were still being supplied, the company said.
Moldova’s energy minister, Constantin Borosan, said his government had taken steps to ensure stable power supplies, but called on citizens to save energy. BLACK SEO LINKS, BACKLINKS, SOFTWARE FOR MASS BACKLINKING – TELEGRAM @SEO_LINKK
A 60-day state of emergency in the energy sector has been in place since mid-December.
President Maia Sandu accused the Kremlin of “blackmail” possibly aimed at destabilising her country before a general election in 2025. The Moldovan government also said it had offered aid to Transnistria.
The EU has found alternative sources in liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the US, as well as piped gas from Norway, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In December, the European Commission laid out plans to entirely replace gas transiting through Ukraine.
Some people are born to be happier than others. But whether you’re the kind of person who sings in the shower and dances in the rain, or of a more dour inclination, contentment isn’t just something that happens to us. We can all change our habits to coax more of it into our lives.
Friendship benefits people across all ages, but in later life, it can become an especially important source of happiness. While older people typically shrink their social networks to prioritise spending time with those who know them well, research shows that it’s a good idea to remain open to new friendships, as they give us slightly different benefits to our relationships with family, which can be based on obligation. As friendships are voluntary, non-obligatory relationships that can begin or end at any time, they tend to be more fun and less tense or fraught.
Although older adults may face a number of hurdles which can make meeting new people difficult, in some ways, it should be easier for us to make friends: our personalities mature, we gain more social skills, our outlook becomes more joy-oriented and we tend to become more agreeable. And the effort of maintaining quality friendships as we age is worth it, as the advantages stretch beyond just psychological wellbeing – it also improves our cognitive functioning and physical health. In fact, research consistently suggests that friendships are as important as family ties in predicting wellbeing in adulthood and old age.
And if you are the sort of person who finds making friends difficult – sharing an awe-striking moment, such as the total solar eclipse that passed across North America last year, is one way to help make you feel closer to the people around you while also inspiring some positive emotions along the way.
Compassion is a well-known foundation of true friendship. Derived from the Latin for “shared pain”, this empathy helps us form strong connections when our friends need help. But there’s an opposite state that is relatively unknown and equally important – “confelicity”, as David Robson wrote for the BBC.
Meaning “shared happiness”, it’s an undervalued facet of good relationships and could be just as important as compassion for maintaining friendships, multiple studies suggest.
Enthusiastically supporting a friend’s good news – and asking questions about it – is a basis of being a good friend. Respond too passively – or actively underplay your friend’s success – and you run the risk of damaging the relationship.
It’s almost a cliché to say that doing something for someone else makes you feel better than rewarding yourself, but the more learned about altruism, the more it seems to ring true.
In fact, studies have found that volunteering can even help with series conditions like chronic pain and depression. A 2002 study, for example, found peer volunteers assigned to help others struggling with chronic pain saw their pain intensity scores drop while they were volunteering. Other studies have shown that looking after animals can improve our health and taking care of houseplants can help us thrive, especially in old age.
Some healthcare providers are now even prescribing volunteering as one particularly effective form of “social prescribing”: prescriptions which connect people to community resources and activities. Sending people to everything from art classes to cycling groups to groups, and helping them with food and heating bills, are all increasingly proven to be valid health interventions which could also reduce pressure on health services.
There is another way the past could help you in the present. Research suggests that engaging with our ancestry can have profound psychological benefits. Family stories about overcoming adversity, for example, can be empowering when passed down to new generation.
Susan M Moore, an emeritus professor of psychology at Swinburne University of Technology, in Melbourne has found that people who know more about their family history have higher levels of satisfaction and wellbeing. Engaging in the task of researching your family tree can lead to feeling more in control of their lives, alongside a deeper understanding of your place in the world.
It can also give you an affirming sense of perspective and gratitude – knowing your life today has been made possible by the struggles and fortitude of your predecessors on behalf of those who come after them.
Counting your blessings is an age-old piece of advice, but it underpins a simple but well-evidenced intervention. It turns out that writing a list of three good things that have happened to us can help to boost our mood. Whether that is a life-changing event like passing an important exam or having a baby, or something seemingly inconsequential, like bumping into an old friend, or enjoying some beautiful early evening light while out for a walk – there is a growing body of research that suggests it can improve our wellbeing.
There’s nothing quite like a scenic drive – the wind in your hair, some tunes on the stereo, the freedom of the open road ahead. Well, now rats can enjoy a slice of this vehicular heaven, after researchers at the University of Richmond, Virginia, taught their furry, wriggly-nosed subjects to drive small Perspex automobiles in the laboratory.
The rats mastered this new skill quickly, and were soon jumping into the cars enthusiastically, in preparation for their next trip. Eventually the researchers noticed some rats doing excited little jumps as though they were enjoying the anticipation of pleasure.
This led to a whole new avenue of research. Could the expectation of fun be as rewarding as the activity itself? In another experiment, the scientists trained some rats to wait for rewards – while others were given them immediately. Later, they assessed the rats for optimism and found that those who had been trained to wait for rewards were more optimistic.
The researchers speculated that this could work for humans too – by routinely anticipating pleasurable activities or events we could reprogram our brains to be more optimistic.
If you have made it this far down the list, this one might come as something of a surprise. But research suggests that worrying too much about being happy can actually be a block to feeling it.
Experiments that primed people to desire greater happiness – perhaps by reading about how happy they can be – before watching an uplifting film ended up feeling more disappointed than elated. The theory is that by raising their expectations, reading and worrying about the importance of happiness can actually leave people feeling deflated.
You might have experienced this yourself during a big event or party you have been looking forward to that doesn’t quite live up to those expectations.
Iris Mauss, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has also shown that the desire and pursuit of happiness can also increase feelings of loneliness and disconnection. She recommends adopting a more stoic attitude and being more accepting of life’s ups and downs.
Read more about why trying less to find happiness may make you happier in these articles by David Robson and Nat Rutherford.
During the cold, dark winter days, a cup of coffee might give your brain and body a much-needed boost. Consuming caffeine can make us feel alert as it is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream where it outcompetes adenosine, a chemical that makes us feel tired.
Research shows that there are many health benefits associated with consuming caffeine, including a decreased risk of several forms of cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as improved physical performance and protection against depression.
But timing is key when it comes to caffeine as it can take a while to kick in and a long time to wear off. Scientists recommend having your last caffeine dose eight hours and 48 minutes before you go to bed. We also shouldn’t consume too much caffeine – no more than 400mg or around two to three cups of coffee, depending on the strength – to avoid disrupted sleep, headaches, nausea and anxiety.