Crimea in State of Emergency After Electricity Pylons Blown Up

Anti-Russian activists were blamed for the cut.

Ukraine’s main exports to Crimea are paintwork materials, dairy products, liquor, alcohol-free beverages and confectionary, while the peninsula exports chemicals, paintwork materials and various types of equipment to Ukraine.

A mobile gas turbine power plant works to provide electricity in Stroganovka village outside Simferopol, Crimea, Sunday, November 22, 2015.

Aksyonov sacked Crimea’s energy minister on Tuesday, accusing him of mishandling the situation, following media reports that doctors at some hospitals were having to carry jerry cans full of diesel to power generators.

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. Despite global sanctions on Russia as a result of the annexation, Moscow continues to treat Crimea as part of its territory, integrating it into the military system and encouraging Russians to visit Crimea.

One Russian senator described the blasts as an “act of terrorism”. But the blackout has shut down many businesses and plunged the streets into darkness. It has also forced the closure of some 150 schools. Crimea is using its own power resources, covering about a third of the region’s needs, according to the Russian Energy Ministry.

“I think that Crimea will have electricity soon”, he said.

Mustafa A. Dzhemilev, the leader of the Crimean Tatar minority, told the Ukrainian news website Lega.net that the power pylons “could have been blown away by the wind”.

After meeting with foreign ministers of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, Poroshenko echoed the demands of the Tartar protesters, saying the worldwide community should work to release arrested activists, restore Crimean Tatar broadcasts, and reverse the exile of Tatar leaders. Russia’s been planning several projects to increase electrical generation in Crimea as a way of making it less vulnerable to disruptions of power from Ukraine.

If “we get confirmation that we have access, we can start restoring the lines as soon as tomorrow”, said Vsevolod Kovalchuk, the acting head of state power supplier Ukrenergo, which has said it is holding talks with the activists.

Only essential services and government offices were operating on Monday as pro-Ukrainian activists, many of them ethnic Tatars, prevented Ukrainian engineers from repairing the damaged power lines.

The power cut is threatening food outlets which rely on cold storage and lack generating capacity.