Russia to Stop Exporting Electricity to Ukraine
Russia decided not to renew contract negotiations on the supply of electricity from Russia to Ukraine after its refusal to buy Ukrainian electricity for Crimea. According to the newspaper Kommersant, “Russia will stop commercial energy supplies to Ukraine. The contract will not be renewed in its last year.”
The Russian Federation’s Ministry of Energy stated that “Russia does not negotiate about the supply of electricity from Russia to Ukraine. We will not renew the present agreement, as initially it was linked to the contract for the supply of electricity from Ukraine to Crimea.”
Kommersant relates that in 2014 Ukraine bought electricity from Russian power providers under contract between InterRAO and Ukrinterenergo. That contract would remain in force until the end of 2015. Another contract was made at the same time, to supply Crimea with electricity from Ukraine, although it was not formally connected with the export contract between Russia and Ukraine.
Crimea went into a state of emergency due to a blackout on November 22, 2015. The policy of rolling blackouts is used throughout the Crimean peninsula as a means to control the power shortage. There are plans to cover the 30-35% power shortfall by May 2016 when the second phase power bridge from Kuban is launched.