Russian Federation could cut coal to Ukraine over Crimea blackout

Faced with a ban on imports of its food by Moscow for supporting sanctions against Russia, Ukraine said it would hit back with reciprocal trade bans and may also block goods shipments to Crimea.

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

The standoff, which arose from Russia’s annexation of Crimea previous 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. Kiev said on Monday that it would respond in kind.

The alleged bombing is believed to be the second such attack in a matter of days, affecting the two million people who live there. “We aren’t satisfied with today’s status quo, when an occupying power neglects the basic rights of the Crimean Tatar people”, he said.

Video shown by the ATR network, a Tatar television station now operating in Ukraine after its main channel in Crimea was forced to close, showed Tatar activists tackling the special Ukrainian police units trying to gain access for fix crews.

The Crimean authorities suggested Ukraine was involved in the blasts as Crimea’s prosecutors opened a criminal probe.

Economic ties between Russia and Ukraine collapsed after a popular uprising in Kiev ousted Kremlin-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych a year ago, leading Russia to annex Crimea and support Russian-speaking insurgents in the east. Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov said in a statement he was prepared to extend a state of emergency implemented over the weekend until late December.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is investigating the recent bombings of the Ukrainian power grid that have led to blackouts in the Crimean Republic, chief Crimean prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya has told reporters.

In the meantime electricity from emergency gas-fuelled generators is being concentrated in priority areas such as hospitals and residents have also been warned to expect rolling cut offs of water supplies.

Russia’s Energy Ministry said emergency electricity supplies had been turned on for critical needs in Crimea and that mobile gas turbine generators were being used.

“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.

Russia plans to replace the electricity supply from Ukraine with power lines coming from the Russian mainland, but those are not yet complete.