Power line blasts leave Crimea in the dark
KIEV: Crimea was left without electricity supplies from Ukraine yesterday after pylons carrying power lines to the Russia-annexed peninsula were blown up overnight.
It was not clear who had damaged the pylons, but a Russian senator described the move as an “act of terrorism” and implied that Ukrainian nationalists were to blame.
Crimea receives the bulk of its electricity from the Ukrainian mainland and its seizure by Russia last year prompted fury in Kiev and the West, which then imposed economic sanctions on Russian companies and individuals.
Russia’s Energy Ministry said emergency electricity supplies had been turned on for critical needs in Crimea and that mobile gas turbine generators were being used, adding that about 1.6 million people out of a population of roughly 2 million remained without power yesterday.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister, Volodymyr Demchyshyn, said four power lines had been damaged and two districts of Ukraine’s Kherson region had also been left without power.
Ilya Kiva, a senior Ukrainian police officer who was at the scene, said on his Facebook page that the pylons had been “blown up”, as did the Kherson region administration.
The head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, declared today a non-working day because of the “emergency situation”.
The attack, if by Ukrainian nationalists opposed to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, would probably increase tension between Russia and Ukraine. – Reuters