Crimean Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei Yegorov said: “This morning, maximum consumption in the Crimean federal district is about 800 MW at such air temperatures”. “At this time, workers are unable to conduct fix works; explosives have been discovered at those [power] lines”.
Advertisement
Photos of severed towers with a Crimean-Tatar flag hanging on one of them had been posted online. “Crimea is Ukrainian territory”.
Crimean Tatar activists accuse Russian Federation of abusing their rights.
The standoff, which arose from Russia’s annexation of Crimea past year, poses big risks for Poroshenko and his government, said Joerg Forbrig, a Berlin-based analyst at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. If Kiev squeezes Crimea too hard, Russia could easily retaliate by halting exports of vital supplies to Ukraine, including Russian coal that Ukraine uses to generate electricity.
Only essential services and government offices are operating in Crimea after key electricity pylons connected to the peninsula were knocked down in Ukraine.
Due to the cut-offs in electricity supplied from mainland Ukraine, peninsular industrial companies, schools and kindergartens have stopped their work, Ukrayinska Pravda reports, citing Russian media November 25.
In September, Tatar activists on the mainland set up road blocks on the two main routes leading into Crimea at the start of what they said was an economic blockade aimed at dramatising the plight of their Tatar brethren living on the peninsula. It was not immediately clear who was responsible.
“Negotiations regarding the resumption of electricity deliveries [to Crimea] are possible after our political prisoners are freed”, he said in an interview with the online news portal Liga.
“I would urge Crimeans to be patient and to see what our situation is”, Aksyonov said. The ministry didn’t say who was suspected.
Russia’s Novak said it seemed “strange” that Ukraine’s authorities can’t manage some “extremists” preventing the restoration of power.
Local officials were less sanguine.
“We believe that we must prepare for the worst, meaning December 22”.
A government-imposed state of emergency remained in effect following weekend blasts that severed the main electricity supply to the peninsula.
Temperatures in Ukraine, where most homes rely on gas for central heating, were below freezing Wednesday morning.
“Crimeans will not be brought to their knees … or spoken to in the language of blackmail”, he was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency on Sunday.
“Russian forces are on full combat readiness”.
Advertisement
Goods from Russian Federation can just be ferried to Crimea across a thin strip of water known as the Kerch Strait.
