The ban on cargo traffic comes as most of Crimea remains in darkness because of a power blackout caused by explosions at four primary electricity towers in Ukraine over the weekend. The facility lines have been knocked down by saboteurs on Sunday, forcing tens of millions of residents to live with out electricity.
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In September, Tatar and other activists tried to blockade the main road leading from Crimea to Ukraine, disrupting food supplies.
The dispute lays bare the conflict between the former Soviet states amid a separatist war that’s hammered Ukraine’s economy and killed more than 8,000 people.
The group, in which Crimean Tatar activists play a prominent role, denied it was responsible for either the attacks on Friday or Saturday night.
The obstacles have prevented road cargo from reaching Crimea from Ukraine, and on Monday Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk recommended the government officially suspend cargo shipments to the peninsula following a similar statement by President Petro Poroshenko. However, due to the shortage of electric power generation, electricity and water supplies to consumers will be interrupted according to a special schedule. He was unlikely to take kindly to Ukraine disrupting life for all of Crimea, however, given that he has made its absorption into Russian Federation something of a personal project.
Russia’s Energy Ministry said emergency electricity supplies had been turned on for critical needs in Crimea and that mobile gas turbine generators were being used, adding that around 1.6 million people out of a population of roughly 2 million remained without power on Sunday.
Earlier in November, US Department of Defense spokeswoman Michelle Baldanza said that some 300 USA soldiers were deployed to train Ukrainian troops near the Polish border.
Ukraine’s government pledged Monday to return power to Crimea as soon as possible, but it also said it would review whether to continue supplying electricity to the region at all next year. During discussions on the sidelines of the G20 in Turkey last week, the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation powers agreed to extend, for an additional six months, the economic sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to alleged “Russian aggression” in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The authorities on the peninsula proclaimed a State of emergency and set up a crisis unit. Local news agencies reported interruptions in phone reception and Internet connection and restrictions on gasoline sales.
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It is still not clear exactly how the pylons were damaged in Kherson, a Ukrainian region adjacent to Crimea. A power transmission line from Russia’s mainland and also a bridge, assured by the country’s authorities, are yet to be constructed.
