The Crimean Emergencies Ministry has declared a state of emergency due to the massive blackout and has put rescue teams on high alert.
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The Russian government announced a state of emergency in the disputed Crimean peninsula late Saturday evening after power to the region was suddenly cut in an apparent act of sabotage in neighboring Ukraine.
Early on Friday morning, two of the four pylons connecting Crimea were brought down in similar circumstances – and Saturday night’s attack means all power lines are now out of use. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry later said that the power lines were blown up.
“Crimea is completely cut off”, Viktor Plakida, the director of Crimea Energy, told Russia’s Tass news agency.
Important infrastructural and social facilities of the peninsula, such as hospitals, were connected to the emergency power supply, according to Ivanov. But the Reuters news agency, reporting Saturday, said Western leaders meeting on the sidelines of a G-20 summit in Turkey had agreed to extend the sanctions until July 2016.
The attack, if by Ukrainian nationalists opposed to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine previous year, is likely to further increase tensions between Russian Federation and Ukraine.
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Crimean Tatar activists say that it is a shame for Ukrainian authorities, especially as the country is marking the second anniversary of the Euromaidan revolution, to try to dispel people by force.
