Crimea plunged into darkness after electricity towers blown up

The Ukrainian government said on Monday it has chose to temporarily suspend the movements of cargos across the contact line between Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and the Crimean peninsula.

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”.

According to the Russian Energy Ministry, 178 important social facilities had been connected to reserve energy supply sources on Sunday evening, while other facilities, including 150 schools, 100 kindergartens and 40 heating boiler stations, remained without electricity. Kiev rejected the referendum and Crimea’s affiliation with Russian Federation, saying it was unconstitutional. Crimea is only able to produce 30 per cent of its own energy, relying on Kiev to deliver the rest.

Ukraine has suspended deliveries of goods to Crimea, where a power blackout has caused major disruption, the BBC reported.

Ukraine stopped sending electricity to the peninsula after the two supports of the high-voltage grid repaired recently have been blown up again on the Ukrainian territory by Crimean Tatars.

Just who carried out the attack, now the subject of a police investigation, remains unclear but suspicion has fallen on Tartar activists.

Saboteurs blew up the main power lines leading into Crimea early Sunday, plunging the disputed peninsula into darkness and prompting the Russian government to impose a state of emergency there.

“Currently, the workers are clearing the territory and dismantling the destroyed pylon”.

Ukraine still claims the peninsula, and its senior officials have been perturbed that its seizure by Russian Federation has seemingly dropped off the global agenda, rating a fleeting mention at best whenever the crisis over fighting in southeastern Ukraine is discussed.

Civil Blockade leader Lenur Islyamov said Monday on Ukrainian television that the group would not allow fix works to go ahead before 11 of its activists who had gone incommunicado on Friday, and are thought to have been detained by Ukrainian forces, were released.

Photos of severed towers with a Crimean-Tatar flag hanging on one of them had been posted online.

Russian Federation has blamed Ukrainian nationalists from far-right party Right Sector and Crimean Tatar activists for the pylon damage, calling it “an act of terrorism”. A bridge and a power- transmission line from Russia’s mainland, promised by the country’s authorities, are yet to be built.