Ukraine crisis: State of emergency declared in Crimea after electricity pylons

A survey conducted November 13-16 by the Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, saw 87 percent of respondents say Crimea should be part of Russia, as compared with 73 percent in August this year, the Kommersant newspaper reported Monday.

The action follows weeks of protests at border crossings, where Crimean Tatars and right-wing Ukrainian nationalists have been disrupting truck traffic into Crimea, including a complete blockage for the past week.

His annexation of the peninsula led to a severe breakdown of relations with the West, which has demanded Putin should hand back the territory to Ukraine. It’s a vulnerability that someone took advantage of over the weekend by bombing electric transmission towers in Ukraine that serve Crimea.

At least 1.6 out of 2 million Crimea residents were reportedly without power as of Sunday afternoon. There are also some water shortages. The rest will run on diesel generators. But the blackout has shut down many businesses and plunged the streets into darkness. Monday was declared a non-working day. So was access to cable and the Internet.

Unknown assailants presumed to be Ukrainian nationalists knocked out all four of the main electricity lines running through the Kherson region – the first two were severely damaged on Friday and two more by explosions just after midnight on Sunday morning.

After denouncing Moscow for allegedly instigating the worst worldwide crisis since World War II and threatening to destroy the “liberal worldwide order”, former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky called for “more proactive sanctions” aimed at crippling Russia’s energy sector, along with a “larger USA presence” in Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian government temporarily suspends the movement of goods between Ukraine and Crimea at the initiative of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk”, Ukraine’s government said in a statement.

He also warned Ukraine would respond in kind if Russian Federation introduced an embargo on Ukrainian products, as Moscow has threatened to do.

Tensions spiked as Kiev’s landmark free trade agreement with the European Union is set to come into force on January 1, 2016. It sparked a revolution and Moscow-backed insurgency in eastern regions.

Ethnic Tatars from Crimea and some Ukrainian radical groups blocked Ukrenergo’s fix teams as well as cargo trucks to Crimea, demanding an economic blockade of the peninsula until Russian Federation releases political prisoners.

Images on social media show Ukrainian flags on some damaged pylons – and Crimean Tatar flags on others. Early on Friday morning, two of the four pylons connecting Crimea were brought down in similar circumstances.