State of emergency declared in Crimea

A state of emergency was declared in Crimea after transmission towers in the neighbouring Ukraine’s Kherson region were blown up, causing a blackout, media reported 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.

Russian Federation has no information on the steps Ukraine is taking to restore power to Crimea and hopes they’ll be “energetic”, Interfax reported on Monday, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The government’s decision Monday heightens tensions with Russian Federation, which annexed Crimea previous year and is supporting pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine’s east.

The incident comes more than two months after exiled Crimean Tatars – an ethnic, minority group native to the region – began blocking an important trade road between Ukraine and Crimea in a protest against discrimination and continued Russian rule.

The Crimean branch of Russia’s emergency situations ministry said: “At 12.25am there was a switch-off of electricity coming into Crimea from Ukraine”.

The Civil Blockade of Crimea group, in which Crimean Tatar activists play a prominent role, denied it was responsible for either the attacks on Friday or Saturday night. Several activists were slightly injured, while one police officer was stabbed during the turmoil.

The stand-off ended in clashes with Ukrainian riot police, who were dispatched to the site.

Ukraine’s own power supply was also affected, with parts of the southern Kherson region left without power and “40 percent of the Kherson and Nikolayev regions at risk of shortages”, Kommersant quoted Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Minister Vladimir Demchishin as saying.

Most Crimeans were without power for a third day.

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.

It could take up to 48 hours to fix the damage on the Ukrainian side, and reestablish the power supply to Crimea, a source from Ukrenergo told RIA Novosti.

Crimean authorities said they had managed to partially reconnect a number of cities including Simferopol.

Goods from Russian Federation can just be ferried to Crimea across a thin strip of water known as the Kerch Strait.