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Druzhba oil halt and Moldova decree revoked
Summary
Two separate reports from the final days of February 2023 concerned Russian energy exports to Poland and Russian policy on Transnistria.
What did Moscow signal to its western neighbours in the final days of February 2023? On 25 February 2023, the refiner PKN Orlen announced that Russia had suspended oil exports to Poland via the northern branch of the Druzhba pipeline.
The announcement came from the company itself, and it concerned a single route: the northern branch of Druzhba.
Three days earlier, on 22 February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin had revoked a 2012 foreign policy decree. That decree had underpinned Moldova's sovereignty in resolving the political status of the breakaway Transnistria region. Its revocation touched on relations between Moldova and Russia, and between Russia and Transnistria.
The two developments were separate, involving different countries and different instruments: a pipeline suspension reported by a refiner, and a revoked presidential decree. Both, however, were reported within four days of each other, and both involved Russian decisions affecting states on Ukraine's western border region.
