It wasn't clear early Sunday whether the blasts occurred in Ukrainian territory or in Crimea, which Russia annexed last year despite international outrage and a spate of Western sanctions aimed at forcing Moscow to return the peninsula to Ukrainian control.
Russia's official Tass news agency said all power to Crimea was lost shortly after midnight local time. The agency said neither police nor Crimean authorities had identified the cause of the blackout.
Ukraine's UNIAN news agency reported Friday that two of the four main power lines had been disabled following an explosion of an unidentified device.
By Saturday, Tass was quoting the director of Krymenergo, the Crimea energy company, as saying, "Crimea is completely cut off," but there was no comment on the situation from Kyiv.
Separately, Ukraine's Channel 5 television reported that Ukrainian police had surrounded a group of Tatar activists near the downed lines. The report, quoting Lenur Islyamov, the head of a group advocating the blockade of Crimea, described the situation at the site of the downed power lines as "tense.".......voanews.com
22/11/15
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- All medical establishments of Crimea have been connected to reserve power sources, First Vice Premier of the republic’s government Mikhail Sheremet, who heads the emergency response headquarters, told reporters on Sunday.
Earlier on Sunday, Crimea introduced a state of emergency in connection with electric power supply disruption from Ukraine. The peninsula’s power system is currently working in an isolated regime, Sheremet said.
tass.ru
22/11/15
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Electricity pylons on Crimean border completely destroyed in new blast...
ReplyDelete"An explosion has been heard in Chaplynka. The damaged pylons have been destroyed," journalist, Editor-in-Chief of Crimean Tatar TV Channel ATR Osman Pashayev wrote on Facebook.
Reports about the explosion were confirmed by chief of the Interior Ministry's narcotics control department Ilya Kiva, who was in charge of a law-enforcement operation after the electricity pylons were damaged in blasts in the early hours of November 20, as a result of which two of the four facilities were disabled.
The transmission pylons near the village of Chaplynka in Kherson region on the administrative border between mainland Ukraine and Crimea, which were earlier damaged by blasts, were destroyed completely late on Saturday, according to reports in social networks.
Reports about the explosion were confirmed by chief of the Interior Ministry's narcotics control department Ilya Kiva, who was in charge of a law-enforcement operation after the electricity pylons were damaged in blasts in the early hours of November 20, as a result of which two of the four facilities were disabled.
The four transmission pylons belong to the power grids supplying electricity to Crimea and some areas in Ukraine's Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
The site was cordoned off by the police after the first explosions. A repair team arrived at the site on Saturday morning to earth the wires.
The site of the explosion is close to the venue where Crimean Tatar leaders and public activists have been staging a blockade of Russian-occupied Crimea. They call on the Ukrainian authorities not only to cease food shipments to the peninsula, but also to suspend the electricity supply there.
The activists deny any involvement in the incident.
UNIAN