Saboteurs cut power to Crimea

When the first two traces were shutdown on Friday, Crimea’s ministry of energy and vitality informed people that distractions while in the power were probable and encouraged that they fill up on batteries, water along with other basics.

The deputy head of Ukrenergo, the grid operator in Ukraine, said on Sunday that it’ll take about four days to fix the electric power lines and put them back into service.

So far, Crimea – home to 1.9 million people – has enough fuel to keep the gas and diesel-powered generators running, authorities said.

“Crimea has been completely cut off”, the Krymenergo energy company’s director Viktor Plakida told TASS, adding that he could not immediately provide any more details.

Photos shared on social media show Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar flags waving on a few of the damaged lines.

The reports indicated that pylons in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson has been blown up by pro-Ukrainian activists.

Unidentified saboteurs had already damaged two of Kherson’s four electricity transmission towers 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 a few of the damaged power lines on Saturday.

It’s being suggested Ukrainian nationalists are behind the attack on Crimea’s power supplies.

The peninsula declared independence from Ukraine on March 17, 2014 and formally applied to become part of Russian Federation following a referendum a day earlier, in which 96.8 percent of participants voted in favor of the secession.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Crimea, was not affected by the power outage, the Interfax news agency reported, citing a fleet spokesman.

While important public facilities and infrastructure were swiftly wired up to reserve sources of energy, homes across the region were left in the dark. The Tatar activists who blockaded the location stated they would forestall repairs until Russian Federation let go political prisoners & allowed global organizations to monitor human rights in Crimea.