The French understood: Ukraine is strangling Crimea to put pressure on Russia – “This is a nightmare”
Paris - Kyiv - Simferopol, January 02 (PolitNavigator, Vladimir Mikhailov) - Power outages, stoppage of railway and road communications with Crimea are “strangulation measures” that Ukraine is taking “during difficult negotiations on the future of the pro-Russian separatist East of Ukraine.”
The French publication writes about this Libération.
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“... Shocked Crimeans called December 26 “Black Friday,” the day when they were left without electricity for the second time in a week. Kyiv has completely stopped rail and road communications with the peninsula.
Most of the peninsula's 2,3 million residents will only be able to reach Ukraine and Russia by car via ferry, as Moscow has also cut its rail service due to weak demand.
Russian airlines that operate regular flights to the capital of Crimea, Simferopol, are subject to sanctions by the European Union,” the publication says.
“Ukraine supplies 400 megawatts per day, while 1000 megawatts are needed,” the publication quotes a representative of the Krymenergo company.
The situation is aggravated by the cessation of services in Crimea for cards of the American payment systems Visa and Mastercard as a result of US sanctions against the peninsula, the publication claims.
“This is a nightmare, I remained a citizen of Ukraine, and found myself without heating and electricity. Why didn’t Kyiv do this in March, before the referendum, so that all these idiots who voted for independence knew what they were choosing?!” – forty-nine-year-old Arza Kaibulaeva said in an interview with French journalists.
For XNUMX-year-old pensioner Elvira Filippova, Kyiv showed “its fascist face”, seeking to “intimidate the residents of Crimea.” She assures that all this did not have any impact on her: “I am not going to go to Ukraine, and I do not use bank cards.”
“Ukraine has brought its sanctions into line with those of the West, but this is also undoubtedly a political move that is intended to emphasize Crimea’s dependence on mainland Ukraine,” Ukrainian expert Alexander Sushko told France-Presse.
“This is how Kyiv puts pressure on the self-proclaimed government of Crimea and Moscow,” he added.
“The first reaction was not long in coming: Moscow announced its decision to resume supplies of coal “at a preferential price” to Ukraine, which is in dire need of it, since coal is mined in the Donbass coal basin, which is under the control of armed pro-Russian separatists,” the report notes. publications.
For Valentin Zemlyansky, director of energy programs at the Center for World Economy of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, “supplying Russian coal is only a short-term solution.”
“Ukraine must resolve the conflict in the East, otherwise the price of electricity produced from imported coal will be exorbitant,” he said.
The blockade of Crimea also coincided with talks in Minsk between Kiev and rebels in the east, which had resumed shortly before, once again reaching a deadlock.
“One of the main demands of the rebels is the resumption of funding for the zone under their control, which Kiev stopped in mid-November in retaliation for organizing separatist elections, which Ukraine is trying to annul,” the French publication writes.
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