Power lines to Crimea are blown up, cutting off electricity

Crimea has been left without electricity supplies from Ukraine after pylons carrying power lines to the Russia-annexed peninsula were blown up overnight.

Ukrainian police and journalists simultaneously posted social media reports of explosions in Chaplinka in the Kherson region, where power transmission towers supporting the lines delivering energy to Crimea are located.

Two of the four transmission towers in Kherson, Ukraine, were damaged on Friday.

Video footage from a Tatar TV station posted on YouTube showed a group of activists clashing with members of Ukraine’s national guard who attempted to seal the area around some of the damaged power lines on Saturday. Crimea retains connections to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has written a letter to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk suggesting the urgent creation of a working group for a comprehensive analysis of the issue of the termination of cargo transport communication with Crimea. According to the official, the amount of fuel to generate electric power on the peninsula will be enough at least for one month.

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.

Crimean authorities said they had managed to partially reconnect the cities of Simferopol, Yalta and Sevastopol using generators. It was revealed that Ukrainian radical activists campaigning for the blockage of the peninsula exploded supports of power lines. “I think that Crimea will have electricity soon”, he said.

It was not immediately clear who had blown up the pylons, but a Russian senator described the move as an “act of terrorism” and implied that Ukrainian nationalists were to blame.

““Emergency mode was introduced in Crimea in connection with the complete halt of electricity supply to Crimea from Ukraine”, Vladimir Ivanov said.

“Its agencies may have done this themselves”, he said.