Occupied Crimea extends school break as Ukrainian strikes leave the peninsula without power

Crimea’s school break has been extended amid power outages after Ukrainian strikes disrupted the peninsula’s energy infrastructure. The move affects pupils and reflects the wider effects of repeated interruptions to electricity and water supplies.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of the annexed region, said classes were expected to resume on 9 November. Crimea lost power overnight on 3 November; authorities first attributed the outage to a transmission-line failure, before Russia’s Energy Ministry blamed Ukrainian strikes. A Ukrainian campaign targeting Crimea’s electricity supply began in June, and the peninsula has repeatedly lost power since then.