Why Ukraine supplies electricity to Crimea

The prosecutor noted that many of those hindering the fix work had come to Ukraine from Crimean territory, but their part in the attacks was still to be established.

“The Ukrainian side has enough capabilities to renew the electricity supply, that is what Ukrainian counterparts say”, Mr. Novak said, Russia’s state-run TASS agency reported.

But for now, the peninsula which Russian Federation seized a year ago depends on Ukraine for at least 70 percent of its electricity. They said it was not immediately clear who was responsible.

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.

MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday it would cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and threatened to halt coal deliveries, ratcheting up a dispute over a power blackout in Crimea at a time when a ceasefire between Kiev and separatist rebels is fraying.

Crimea’s First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Sheremet said in September that an energy blockade of Crimea would trigger retaliatory measures for Ukraine.

Ukraine temporarily suspended cargo traffic to Crimea as protesters blocked authorities’ efforts to restore power to the peninsula after explosions plunged nearly two million people into darkness on Sunday.

Earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak stated that the power bridge to supply electricity to the Crimea from the Russian Federation would be built in the very near future.

“We are not satisfied with today’s status quo, when an occupying power neglects the basic rights of the Crimean Tatar people”, Mr. Poroshenko said on Monday. Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-backed head of Crimea, declared Monday a non-working day because of the emergency situation.

In August, Russia began laying a power cable along the bed of the Kerch strait, which separates Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula from the Taman Peninsula in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

The new spike in tensions with Moscow comes as Kiev expects a free trade agreement between Ukraine and the European Union to enter into force from January 1, 2016.

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

The Tatar activists who blockaded the broken website stated they would thwart repairs until Russian Federation let go political prisoners & allowed worldwide organizations to monitor human rights in Crimea.

Russia plans to replace the electricity supply from Ukraine with power lines coming from the Russian mainland, but those are not yet complete. In the port city of Sevastopol, electricity was cut off completely at 2:00 am, although different districts have since had brief rolling periods of power, an AFP journalist reported.