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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