Pro-Ukrainian activists prevented repairs to sabotaged power lines leading to Crimea on Monday, keeping the Russian-annexed peninsula starved of electricity for a second day and tensions between Moscow and Kiev high. Electric power supplies to the Crimea were interrupted as a result of subversive activities, when supports of electric power lines were demolished in the south of Ukraine.
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Crimea on Sunday declared a state of emergency after an explosion Saturday in Ukraine’s Kherson region bordering the peninsula cut the two working power lines heading to the territory, leaving some 1.6 million people without electricity.
One prominent Tatar, Mustafa Djemilev, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, said the partisans would allow access only for crews sent to fix pylons that serve only Ukrainian territory, not Russian-held Crimea.
Reports in Ukraine said that the police had clashed with activists from the right-wing nationalist Right Sector movement in the area on Saturday after the initial damage.
Russian Federation has no direct land route to Crimea; a single ferry boat is all that connects the two land masses.
“Crimea experienced several total power cuts last winter, attributed by the authorities to repairs and technical problems, but seen by residents as deliberate pressure from Ukraine”.
FLINTOFF: Ukrainian police say someone bombed two electrical transmission pylons near the mainland city of Kherson on Friday night.
Anti-tank mines Much of Crimea continued to be without power yesterday, three days after pylons carrying electricity to the peninsula were brought down in southern Ukraine, by what investigators suspect were anti-tank mines. “It’s a demonstration that Russian pressure on Ukraine could swing back on Russia like a boomerang”.
Novak said Crimea’s local power plants are now covering 35-40 percent of the energy needs of the peninsula.
According to the Russian Energy Ministry, 178 important social facilities had been connected to reserve energy supply sources on Sunday evening, while other facilities, including 150 schools, 100 kindergartens and 40 heating boiler stations, remained without electricity.
Protesters, who surrounded the site after the incident, denied their responsibility for the attacks on the power lines.
The head of the anti-narcotics department of Ukraine’s interior ministry, Ilya Kiva, who was at the scene, wrote on Facebook: “The pylons have just been blown up!!!”
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Monday, the USA troops “will be training five battalions of active-duty troops and one battalion of special operations forces personnel”.
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On November 22, Ukraina.ru falsely reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had chose to “completely block up the Crimea” by putting a stop to all trade and cargo to the peninsula.
