Putin inaugurates Crimean ‘energy bridge’

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has traveled to the capital of Crimea to open an electricity connection with the Russian mainland, 10 days after the peninsula lost power coming from Ukraine.

After Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, it began building an underwater electricity cable system to the peninsula from Russia’s Krasnodar region.

The urgency of the project intensified after electricity pylons in Ukraine were blown up on Nov. 22, leaving Crimea largely without power.

Russian news reports said Putin traveled to the city of Simferopol late Wednesday to inaugurate the delivery of Russian power.

The first phase is to reach its full 200-megawatt capacity by early January and a second phase of identical capacity is to go online later in December, the reports said.

Source: The Associated Press