Friday, January 1, 2016

Russia Plans Survey in Crimea on Ukraine Electricity Contract

By 


MOSCOW — In an echo of the referendum in 2014 on whether to join Russia, residents of Crimea are being asked if they want to reaffirm their choice.

The catalyst this time is the power grid. The longstanding contract under which Ukraine supplied about 70 percent of the peninsula’s electricity expired on Thursday. Ukraine is willing to sign a new one, but only if the contract states explicitly that the Black Sea peninsula is part of Ukraine, the Russian minister of energy, Aleksandr Novak, said on state television.


Now President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has ordered a survey of Crimean residents asking if they want to accept such a contract — and if they want to reaffirm being part of Russia.

The contract demand could not be immediately confirmed by Ukraine. Ukrainian reports said that Ukrenergo, the state-run company that controls the grid, had declined to comment and that officials were unavailable.

In March 2014, Mr. Putin sent troops to seize Crimea from Ukraine and then hastily organized a referendum through which an overwhelming majority of the two million residents supported the idea of joining Russia.

But much of the infrastructure in Crimea is still dependent on Ukraine. Electricity supplies were curtailed in November after opponents of the Russian annexation, including members of the Tatar minority, blew up four pylons in Ukraine supplying power to Crimea. The damage was partially repaired, although new pylon problems caused failures on Thursday in Sevastopol.

The proposed public survey essentially will ask Crimeans whether to accept the Ukrainian wording in the new contract, and get a steady power supply, or to reject it and live with rolling power outages for months until Russia can establish an alternative source. The small survey was expected to be completed by Friday.

An initial link to the Russian mainland was connected in December, but it supplies only a fraction of the electricity needed.



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