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

Crimea has extended its school break due to power outages, confirmed by Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed leader of the region. The extension was announced on Wednesday, with classes expected to resume on November 9. The current difficult situation was cited as the reason for the delay in returning to school. Crimea lost power overnight on November 3, with regional authorities initially blaming a failure on the main transmission lines.

However, on November 4, outages continued, and Russia's Energy Ministry acknowledged that Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure were responsible. Ukrainian forces launched a campaign in June to disrupt Crimea's electricity supply. Since then, the peninsula has experienced repeated power losses, which have also affected its water supply. The scheduled fall break in Russian schools in 2026 was from October 26 to November 3.