Ukraine formally resumed its supply of electricity to Crimea on Dec. 8, ending what had been a nearly three-week cutoff. In an official press statement, the Russian Ministry of Energy acknowledged the resumption of flows and noted that the peninsula was receiving 160 megawatts of electricity. While the development may appear to be a sign of improving ties between Ukraine and Russia, the timing, manner and context in which it occurred actually point to a very different conclusion.
Crimea has experienced major power disruptions since the weekend of Nov. 20-22, when explosions knocked out all four of the major cables that supplied electricity to the peninsula. While no one officially claimed responsibility for the explosions, they happened as Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists were holding demonstrations near the electricity infrastructure in Ukraine's southern Kherson region. Ukrainian security forces were dispatched but did not make any meaningful attempts to disrupt the demonstrations. Furthermore, two of the power lines were actually cut after the appearance of security personnel, suggesting that Ukrainian authorities were at the very least indifferent to if not supportive of the disruptions.
This assumption is only reinforced by the fact that Ukraine did not make any immediate repairs to the electricity cables, and indeed, after the incident Kiev complied with a key demand of protesters by restricting all freight supplies to Crimea. Meanwhile, demonstrators remained in the area and prevented Ukrainian energy company representatives from making repairs, something Kiev again tolerated and did not push hard against.
It was not until Dec. 6 that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said electricity supplies would soon be resumed. But when energy workers attempted to make the necessary repairs that day, activists from the far-right group Right Sector blocked them. The following day, Right Sector announced that it would end its obstruction of repairs and instead concentrate its resources on a blockade of cargo to Crimea. Then, at 1:15 a.m. on Dec. 8, the Kakhovsky-Titan power line, one of the four main cables supplying electricity to Crimea, was reconnected to the energy grid and supply flows resumed.
This could be interpreted as a sign of progress. However, that the process to reconnect just one of the power lines to Crimea was so complicated and time-consuming shows just how far the relationship between Kiev and Moscow has deteriorated. All four power lines could technically have been repaired in a matter of hours, yet it took weeks to repair just one of them, restoring only a fraction of the 850 MW that Ukraine previously sent to the peninsula. Moreover, the power line that was repaired is also responsible for supplying electricity to two districts in southern Ukraine, so the resumption may have been at least partially motivated by domestic power supply needs. As of this writing, the Ukrainian government has given no timetables and shown no official intention of making repairs to the other three power lines.
Consequently, the Crimea electricity standoff is likely to endure for quite some time yet, and Russia has made contingency plans that indicate it expects a long-term disruption. Russia has fast-tracked an electricity bridge project into Crimea, and Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the launch of the first part of the project on Dec. 2. Subsequent phases are set to begin later in December and early next year. Meanwhile, Russia is planning to cut all agricultural imports from Ukraine starting Jan. 1, 2016, because the two sides failed to agree on the terms of implementing Ukraine's free trade agreement with the European Union. Kiev and Moscow are also bracing for an intense legal battle over the looming maturation in late December of a $3 billion bond Ukraine owes Russia.
In the meantime, fighting has escalated in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks as Kiev and Moscow remain deadlocked on the implementation of the Minsk agreement, which the two sides continue to interpret differently. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev on Dec. 7-8 and pledged his country's support for Ukraine while censuring Russia for the annexation of Crimea and for not fully implementing the Minsk agreement — criticisms that will not go unnoticed in the Kremlin. It is clear that rather than moving closer together, Ukraine and Russia are only moving further apart, and the delayed and partial resumption of electricity from Ukraine to Crimea, whatever the motivation, does not change this fundamental reality.
