Most Of Crimea Still Without Electricity

For the third consecutive day, activists from the Crimean Tatar community continue blocking the access for maintenance crews to site in Kherson region, where four transmission pylons were reportedly blown up, leaving about 1.8 million people in the Crimean peninsula without electricity.

President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine, without mentioning the electricity cutoff directly, appeared to endorse the confrontation.

“Currently, thanks to transferring mobile gas turbine power plants, we have overcome the absolute zero energy supply to Crimea on Sunday, we have launched about 300 megawatts, thus ensuring energy supply of the crucial infrastructure first”.

Kiev has also threatened a tit-for-tat ban on food imports from Russian Federation in a dispute connected to a free trade agreement between Kiev and the European Union that is set to come into force from January, while the interior minister has suggested cutting off power to Crimea totally.

Poroshenko expressed anger Monday over Moscow’s treatment of Tatars.

“I would like to emphasise that Ukraine will respond in similar ways”, he said.

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.

Washington has made repeated pledges of support for Ukraine, and has committed more than $265 million in training and equipment since 2014, Davis said.

He said the Tartars welcomed the decision by the Ukrainian government to restrict the flow of goods to Crimea, meaning the activists wouldn’t have to man road blocks in icy weather. Russian Federation plans to build an enormous bridge, but that would not be completed for at least three years.

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

Crimea now draws at least 70% of its electricity from Ukraine.

The leadership of both the Crimean Tatars, now in exile, and a nationalist group, Right Sector, endorsed the destruction without claiming responsibility. “Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including Crimean Tatars, are facing brutal pressure from the Russian authorities right now”, the president said.

“Extremists don’t allow workers to fix the damaged power stations”.

He also said that the Kremlin may halt coal supplies to Ukraine in retaliation for blowing up pylons that caused the interruption of gas supplies from Ukraine, which accounts for most of Crimea’s electricity.