Russian Federation annexed Crimea in March 2014, but the peninsula remains dependent on infrastructure and deliveries from Ukraine for supplies of electricity, water and food.
Advertisement
The Ukrainian government said on Monday it has made a decision to temporarily suspend the movements of cargos across the contact line between Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and the Crimean peninsula.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said one of the four damaged transmission towers could be quickly repaired, and Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn said electricity to Crimea could flow within 72 hours if fix crews could enter the sites blocked by demonstrators.
Ilya Kiva, a senior officer in the Ukrainian police who was at the scene, said on his Facebook page that the towers had been “blown up”.
The group, in which Crimean Tatar activists play a prominent role, denied it was responsible for either the attacks on Friday or Saturday night when contacted by Reuters on Sunday.
MOSCOW/KIEV Nov 24 Russian Federation said on Tuesday it would cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and threatened to halt coal deliveries, ratcheting up a dispute over a power blackout in Crimea at a time when a ceasefire between Kiev and separatist rebels is fraying. The electricity supply was severed on Saturday when a series of explosions toppled power poles located inside Ukraine, Deutsche Welle reports today. He said hospitals and major transport hubs were working and promised to speed up the development of a direct power-transmission line from Russian Federation.
Protesters – including Crimean Tatars – are preventing repairs to the pylons.
Almost 1.9 million people were left partly or fully without electricity.
Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo says the nature of the damage shows that it took place as a result of “shelling or the use of explosive devices”.
Poroshenko said Ukraine needs to coordinate with its global partners to secure the liberation of arrested activists, restore the broadcasting of Crimean media, and allow Crimean Tatar leaders to return to their homes. The United States and the European Union imposed economic sanctions on Russian Federation after the seizure of Crimea, and most other countries still consider the area to be a legal part of Ukraine.
Crimea announced a day off for nongovernment workers on Monday and shut down public services that use a lot of electricity, like the trolley-bus service in the port city of Sevastopol, replacing them with regular buses on some routes.
Advertisement
The leadership of both the Crimean Tatars, forced into exile by Russian Federation, and a right-wing nationalist group, Right Sector, endorsed the destruction without claiming responsibility.
