VIENNA - On a frosty morning in Slovakia's capital Bratislava, cameraman Peter Lahky expressed his concerns over a looming energy crisis after Ukraine on Wednesday halted Russian gas transit to Europe, fearing that higher energy prices would further add to his financial burden.

The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline was built in the Soviet era to carry Siberian gas to European markets. It became the main conduit to Ukraine’s border with Slovakia from Siberia, passing through the town of Sudzha — which is now under the control of Ukrainian military forces — in Russia’s Kursk region.

Kyiv has finally turned off Russia’s gas supply to Europe, ending a source of income that helped pay for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The decades-old deal, which allowed the transit of natural gas produced by Russian energy giant Gazprom through Ukraine, ended at midnight on December 31, shutting down Russia’s last major gas corridor to Europe.

Ronald Reagan’s wish came true this week. The last gas pipeline to Europe from Russia shut down. The 40th president’s political heir, Donald Trump, stands to reap the benefit.

Russia will no longer transport gas to Europe via Ukraine’s pipelines, further limiting its ability to raise capital

Moldova faces a security crisis, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Friday after its separatist pro-Moscow Transdniestria region, cut off from supplies of Russian gas, closed factories, restricted central heating and imposed rolling power blackouts.

Industrial production has screeched to a halt in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Europe, after Russian gas flows through Ukraine came to an end.

A victory hailed as “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats” by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, was not won on the battlefield.