Kyiv cuts water supplies to Crimea: Crimea deputy PM
The Crimean deputy prime minister says Kyiv reduced water supplies to the peninsula by three times and called on Ukrainian authorities to reconsider the decision.
On Monday, Rustam Temirgaliyev said Kyiv reduced water supplies to Crimea on the North Crimean Canal from 50 cubic meters per second to 16 cubic meters per second, ITAR-TASS reported.
He also said that the Crimean government had prevented the authorities in Kyiv from cutting off all water by finding a technical solution.
“The officials in Kyiv should seriously moot over what they are doing by cutting off water supplies on the North Crimean canal. Such actions are arousing bewilderment, to put it mildly. I believe that everything will get back to normal, and these people will be brought to responsibility for issuing criminal orders, including to Ukraine’s Committee for Water Management,” Temirgaliyev said.
He flatly denied Ukrainian leaders’ allegations that Crimea has not paid for its water, noting that Crimea had met the leaders’ requirement and handed over all the necessary documents for concluding a water supply contract to Ukraine’s Kherson region last Saturday.
“We said we were ready to pay the price that inept Kyiv officials would set. But again, they found some formal reasons by saying we had sent them the wrong documents,” Temirgaliyev explained.
Tensions between Ukraine and Crimea heightened after the peninsula seceded from Ukraine and joined Russia in March.
The move sparked angry reactions from the United States and the European Union, both imposing punitive measures against a number of Russian officials and authorities in Crimea.
MN/AS/MAM