Even before the current energy blockade, sanctions imposed by the EU, the USA and Ukraine were already seriously affecting Crimea, particularly the economic sanctions, more than those targeting individuals. The import into the EU of goods produced in Crimea has been prohibited since last summer; since December 2014 - investment on the peninsula. For EU-based companies even the purchase of real estate is forbidden. Export of energy products - including oil and natural gas - as well as goods from the transportation and telecommunication sectors are not allowed. Even service for Crimean tourism is no longer permitted to be offered within the EU. The United States has imposed similar sanctions. Last summer, Thomas De Waal, an expert at the USA's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, assessed that this is "one of the toughest embargos in the world." De Waal has characterized this as the "Siege of Crimea."[1]

Since last year, the pro-western Ukraine's embargo has been causing additional severe problems in Crimea; one example being an embargo on water for the peninsula. As a report in "Ukraine-Analysen," published by the University of Bremen has confirmed, before secession, the peninsula had received "up to 85 percent of its water supply from the Ukrainian mainland." In May 2014, Kiev turned off the water supply - with dramatic consequences. Agriculture, in particular, was severely affected, reported "Ukraine-Analysen." For example, cultivation of corn and soya had to be "drastically reduced," and rice had to be abandoned entirely. "Providing drinking water to the major industrial cities" such as Kerch and Feodosia "was a major problem," the report continues. According to official data, "consumption of water has fallen by 20 percent over the past two years."[2]

The numerous blockades of transportation and traffic also have an exceedingly damaging effect. The Ukrainian railroad has ceased service to the peninsula, with no railway access yet to Russia. "Ferry service across the Straits of Kerch" is, for the time being, "the only larger transportation link to the Russian mainland," notes the "Ukraine-Analysen." However, the ferry connection is overburdened and interrupted in bad weather. Moscow seeks to solve the problem with the construction of a railway/automobile bridge across the Straits of Kerch. Construction has begun and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018 [3] - three long years. Because of the difficult accessibility, the import of food from Russia is insufficient to satisfy the needs of the Crimean population.[4] "Ukraine-Analysen" reports that due to the insufficiency of overland connections, "the air traffic to Crimea has significantly increased." "It has tripled since 2013." Only Russian airliners land in Crimea - under high penalty fines - because Crimea's integration into Russia has not been recognized internationally, Crimean airspace is still attributed to Ukraine.[5]

Experts, like Carnegie Endowment's Thomas De Waal have been warning for quite a while that the tough sanctions regime may, in the long run, backfire against the West and its allies in Kiev. For the time being, Kiev still has access to "resources of loyalty" in the Crimea, De Waal quoted the journalist Andrej Sambros, who reports from Crimea for liberal Russian journals, last July. For example, out of the two million people in Crimea, only 20,000 have renounced their Ukrainian citizenship, suggesting that most people want to keep their options open. However, because of the ongoing sanctions, locals now pin their hopes on Moscow, De Waal reports. The sanctions strategy are reminiscent of the methods applied by Georgia towards their separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. After the August 2008 Georgian-Russian War, Mikheil Saakashvili, then the Georgian president, instituted tough laws on “occupied territories.” In South Ossetia in 2008, the Saakashvili government cut the gas supply to the Georgian-majority town of Akhalgori, in the hopes of provoking anti-Russian upheavals. The contrary was the case. Following several freezing winters, the population complained of "Georgian cruelty." Abkhazia also suffered years of economic misery but now has few connections with Georgia and has undergone a slow integration into the Russian economy. De Waal reported that one Crimean Tatar bitterly complained that "we are losing Crimea because of this policy"[6] referring to the embargo imposed by Kiev and the West.

The most recent escalation is spiraling the process even further. Crimean Tatars have been blocking overland access to Crimea with the help of fascist Right Sector militants, already since the end of September, to prevent deliveries from Ukraine from reaching the peninsula. Kiev has turned a blind eye. Late last week, it is suspected that Crimean Tatars blew up several electric pylons, cutting off the 80 percent of Crimea's Ukrainian electrical supply, as had been done earlier with Crimea's water supply. Ukraine's Minister of Energy declared that the electrical lines would be restored, but this requires access to the destroyed pylons.[7] Crimean Tatars and fascists of the Right Sector are blocking access to the scenes of the attacks. The Berlin-sponsored government in Kiev has no intention of forcing the repairs. Instead, it has ordered a halt also to commerce in merchandise with Crimea. Russia has declared a state of emergency and is rushing to lay a submarine cable through the Straits of Kerch, which however will not be completed before the end of the year. The majority of the population will have to brave the Crimean winter without lights and warmth until then.[8]

The German government, which had helped instigate the sanctions strategy through the imposition of EU sanctions, is now watching these developments with apprehension. Martin Schäfer, the spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry, characterized the sabotage of the electrical pylons as a "criminal act." "We are expecting these incidents to be handled as such" and "that the supply of electricity in and to Crimea will be restored," he said at the Federal Press Conference. Berlin would like to get the Ukraine conflict finally under control. The objective is to prevent an EU-endangering resurgence of the civil war, render German business relations with Russia possible again - and, along the way, become Europe's number one regulatory force. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9]) However, Kiev - in the process of becoming more radicalized - refuses to heed Berlin's admonitions, balks at re-establishing the supply of electricity. Rather than react to Russia's call to pay its gas bills or have its gas supply cut off, Ukraine has declared it was closing its air space to Russian flights. Escalation spirals further.

The Crimean Tatars, implicated in blowing up the electric pylons, are playing an important role in the escalation strategy against Crimea. german-foreign-policy.com will continue with a report on the Crimean Tatars.

For more information on this topic see: Moving West and Steinmeier and the Oligarchs.

Crimean Tartars are primarily responsible for the current blockade imposed on Crimea. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[1]) Already on September 20, they had begun autonomously to inspect traffic destined for the Crimea from the Ukrainian region of Kherson, to prohibit commodity transports onto the peninsula. They accepted the help of Ukrainians - euphemistically referred to as "activists" in the German media - who often are members of fascist organizations, such as the Right Sector or ultra-rightwing militias, such as the Aidar or the Donbass Battalions. October 13, fascist organizations honored the most prominent Crimean Tartar leader, Mustafa Jemilev with the "People's Hero of Ukraine" Award for his reliable cooperation. Already by the beginning of October, their joint blockade of Crimea had expanded to the first attempts to not only cut off Crimea from commodities, but from electrical power, as well.[2] At the end of last week, several electric pylons were blown up, shutting down the supply of electricity to the peninsula. Crimean Tartars then blocked access to the scenes of the crimes to prevent the damage from being repaired.

As "Ukraine-Analysen," a publication of the University of Bremen, points out, actions such as the blockade of the Crimea, could not have been carried out without the "quiet acquiescence" of the administration in Kiev. In fact, already a year ago, President Petro Poroshenko - whose dockyard had been nationalized, when the Crimea was integrated into Russia - had "entered cooperation with the Crimean Tartar leaders." In the October 26, 2014, Ukrainian parliamentary elections, Jemilev and Chubarov, the two last chairs of the Mejlis, the executive council of the Crimean Tartars, were elected to parliament on President Poroshenko's party list. September 26 - with the blockade already in full swing - Poroshenko designated Jemilev to head the National Council for Anti-Corruption Policies, a presidential advisory commission. The Crimea blockade "clearly" demonstrates, writes the editor of the "Ukraine-Analysen," that "in the Ukraine, paramilitary organizations are unofficially engaged in penal functions, permitting President Poroshenko to instrumentalize the co-opted Crimean Tartar leaders for his foreign policy objectives."[3]

However, Jemilev and Chubarov are in no way representing the standpoint of the entire Crimean Tartar minority. Whereas the Mejlis is seen to be pro-western, and even favoring, to a certain extent, circles linked to the Orange Revolution, the Crimean Tartar Milli Firka ("People's Party"), founded in 2006, has been standing in clear opposition to the Mejlis from the very beginning. Whereas the Mejlis 2013 - 2014 supported the Maidan protests and the putsch, Milli Firka had always been clearly opposed - and in March 2014, had appealed for participation in the referendum on Crimea's status and to vote in favor of integration into Russia. The Mejlis called for a boycott of the referendum and declared Russian integration, illegitimate. Reliable information on the proportion of followers Mejlis and Milli Firka have among the peninsula's 250,000 Crimean Tartars is unavailable. It is clear, however, that a monolithic anti-Russian unity, usually suggested by German media of the Crimean Tartar minority, is non-existent. Whereas Moscow has recognized Crimean Tartar as the third official national language - Kiev has consistently refused - official Russian administrations are repressing anti-Russian circles affiliated with the Mejlis. Jemilev and Chubarov, for example, had been banned for several years from Crimea, which is why they live in Ukraine.

Jemilev's close cooperation with the West's foreign policy establishments, where he has made strong pleas against Crimea being integrated into Russia, may have been what caused Russian repression. A good example is Jemilev's trip to Washington in early April 2014, immediately following Crimea's integration into Russia. The Crimean Tartar leader also had an appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he responded to the question of a threat of radicalization on the Crimean peninsula saying that he may "not be able to control younger Tartars and Islamist factions."[4] One of the "Islamist factions" being referred to is the Tartar organization Hizb ut Tahrir, which has sent militia to fight in Syria. When the US press asked if he can imagine "a road back to Ukraine for Crimea," Jemilev ambiguously responded, "everyone talks about the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Where is it?"[5] Among his interventions, also spoke at an informal session of the UN Security Council - boycotted by Russia - and April 4, 2014, held talks with Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the US State Department. He recommended that relations to Crimean Tartars be intensified - for example with scholarships, but also with direct support. The exact nature of Jemilev's plea for "direct support" is unknown.

Berlin, in particular, maintains close relations to leaders of pro-western Crimean Tartars. The Crimean Tartar's Mejlis, with Refat Chubarov as chair, is a member of the ethnicist organization Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN),[6] sponsored by the federal government, as well as various regional governments in Germany. Another ethnicist organization, the Society for threatened Peoples (SFTP), awarded its "Victor Gollancz Prize" to Mustafa Jemilev in 2005. Erika Steinbach (CDU) - at the time the chair of the German League of Expellees (BdV) - held the laudatory address. The SFTP was one of the organizers of the first "German - Crimean Tartar Dialogue," held in the summer of 2011 in Berlin. Mustafa Jemilev, chair, at the time, and his successor Refat Chubarov were among the Mejlis representatives, who traveled to Berlin for the occasion. Viktor Yanukovych had won the Ukrainian election eighteen months earlier. Berlin was searching for a means for keeping Kiev on its pro-western course. According to one report, the German - Crimean Tartar Dialogue had a double objective: on the one hand, to draw attention to the Crimean Tartars and their living conditions, and, on the other, to "search for partners ..., who, at an international forum ... would discuss the Crimean Tartar issue as an element ... of the rapprochement to the EU structures."[7]

In Berlin, numerous officials, including some in senior positions, participated in this debate. The Mejlis delegation held talks not only with parliamentarians of the Bundestag and the chairman of the Green Party, Cem Özdemir, it also met with "activists of half a dozen NGOs," it was reported.[8] The delegation was even received by representatives of the Turkish embassy. Ankara claims to be the "protective power" of Crimean Tartars. The Mejlis delegation also met with Christoph Bergner, at the time, Commissary for Ethnic German Immigrants and National Minorities, who was also responsible for cooperation with the FUEN. The delegation concluded with consultations with representatives of the Foreign Ministry.[9]

Berlin's seasoned foreign policy contacts, Jemilev and Chubarov, are supportive of the past few days' blockade by the sabotage of electric pylons in Ukraine's Kherson region, and are making sure that electrical power will not be restored. Most recently, they both met with Federica Mogherini, High Representative for the EU's Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. They "discussed sincerely and frankly" with Mogherini about the issues of Crimea's "de-occupation," they subsequently reported. They spoke of the extension of sanctions against Russia, and "peaceful actions, in particular with respect to power supply."[10] At the time of these talks, the Crimean Tartars' autonomous trade blockade was already in full swing, blowing up the power pylons was soon to follow.