You're reading: Ukraine cuts power, cancels trains to Crimea

 Ukraine cut power and cancelled trains to Crimea on Dec. 26, operator companies said in their statements. The peninsular was annexed by Russia in March.

DTEK, a private energy holding that
belongs to Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov, said it was ordered
to cut power supplies to Crimea by the national regulator Ukrenergo.

“At 13:50 the transmission power line
… Kakhovskaya- Dzhankoi, which was at this point the only line
feeding Crimea, has been switched off by the order of NAK Ukrenergo,”
the company said in a statement.

Previously, the company had made short,
temporary power cuts in Crimea and other regions due to shortages in
production of energy across Ukraine.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyk warned
at a Cabinet meeting on Dec. 24 that “if the temperatures go down,
meaning that consumption of gas and coal increase, blackouts will be
massive. The only thing that is saving us is the temperature.”

Since his speech, the weather turned in
Ukraine, and temperatures dropped from about 5-7 degrees Cencius to
below zero. The weather is set to worsen over the next few days,
according to the state meteorological
service
, which issued a storm warning for many regions.

In the meantime, the national railways
Ukrzaliznytsia said in its own statement that it has canceled cargo
trains to the Crimean peninsula as of Dec. 26, and will suspend
passenger trains in the next few days, citing unspecified security
concerns.

“To ensure the safety of travel,
Ukrzaliznytsia is limiting the route of trains to Crimea to
Novooleksiyivka and Kherson (on mainland Ukraine),” the company
said in a statement.