As stated this weekend, someone blew up the power infrastructure for Crimea. Power has been down by and large across the Peninsula. There has been a question as to what exactly happened. Some reports suggest an explosion in the Russian occupied zone. Others are stating power lines from Ukraine were targeted on Ukrainian territory. It appears to be the former is what happened, but its not 100% clear.
Pro Ukrainian protesters and Crimean Tatars blocked access to places on the Ukrainian side for repairs. However, the Crimean Tatar leader relented and allowed repair crews access to the site. If this was an attack on Ukrainian territory by the Tatars, this is a disaster in many, many ways. Ukraine cannot root out Russia from the Peninsula. The international community is utterly disinterested in helping as well. So, if the Tatars did this, it will only rain down hell on those residents still within Crimea.
To punctuate what the potential for disaster, the Russians rolled tanks to the Crimean "border." The threat was pretty obvious: restore power or else.
However, Poroshenko seems to think disaster is the hot chick and suggested completely blockading the Crimean Peninsula: power, water, freight, traffic, etc. One could hope they will not go through with this and Poro was just doing the dumb jock talk about the hot chick (all talk, no do). However, it looks like reports are starting to come in that this is going to become official Ukrainian government policy.
Donetsk airport
That picture is from two days ago. This morning, the Donbass has 15 C (59 F) weather.
The situation in Ukraine in the Donbass is rapidly deteriorating. Russia banned all food from Ukraine and is threatening other sanctions against Ukraine. No plausible explanation was given. Ukraine reciprocated. Ukraine has not bought gas from the Russians and use in Ukraine is down 19% from the year previously. No doubt this is partially because chunks of the Donbass are not paid for by the Ukrainians any more.
Fighting in the Donbass is escalating. Two soldiers were killed last night. The area around Donetsk is the worst location for the fighting. However, our old sore spot of Shirokyne has lit up like a Christmas tree and fighting has flared there, too. Some fights have been noted in the Lugansk Oblast as well at the contact line: IEDs are starting to appear in Lugansk. The fighting is not short bursts, but now extending for hours.
The people are expecting the worst in the Donbass: in Gorlovka they have started sandbagging their windows.
1 comment:
Sounds like there must have been explosions on both, Russian and Ukrainian, sides to knock out the power lines then, if the Tatars were blocking the downed lines on the Ukrainian side. Seems likely the Tatars are responsible then, if the damage does span the border.
Things may get very weird very soon in Ukraine with the downing of the Russian Su-24 by Turkey on the Syrian front. Don't know what sort of mood that'll put the Russians in when dealing with Ukraine.
This is turning into a perpetual motion disaster machine.
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