According to Sheremet, Crimea does not expect to receive power from Ukraine as the situation there is unstable and there can be no guarantees of electricity supplies.
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He also vowed that Russian Federation will help make Crimea more energy independent by 2018.
Russian Federation annexed Crimea in 2014 from Ukraine after a popular revolt overthrew the pro-Moscow government in Kyiv and installed pro-Western leaders.
Crimea was left without electricity last week after Ukrainian nationalists blew up pylons that support electricity lines from Ukraine.
Russian news reports said Putin traveled to the city of Simferopol late Wednesday to inaugurate the delivery of Russian power.
“The first electricity line should have been operational on December 20, but the works have been speeded up…” In July, a government tender showed an electricity cable from Russian Federation to Crimea would cost $830 million to build.
Russian-occupied Crimea’s de facto First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Sheremet has warned against plans to stage a naval blockade of the peninsula and asked not to carry out ill-advised acts, Russian information agency RIA Novosti has reported. “I am convinced we will improve our relations with Ukraine, and the border will open as soon as the incumbent president of Ukraine is ousted from power”, said Sergey Aksyonov, the head of the Crimean Republic. No one has claimed responsibility for the sabotage.
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Crimean authorities said earlier there was little chance that the region would ever be reconnected to Ukraine’s power grid.
