Putin Slams Power Monopoly After Big Moscow Outage

Moscow was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after a big power outage that President Vladimir Putin blamed on the state-owned electricity monopoly headed by a liberal politician viewed with suspicion by the Kremlin.

The outage, caused by a fire in a substation, shut the stock exchange, crippled transport and threatened mobile phone links in the sweltering Russian capital.

Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said the breakdown was caused by a fire and explosion overnight at an electricity substation. There was no evidence of a terrorist attack, he said.

But Putin, who delayed a provincial trip because of the crisis, pointed the finger at the management of Unified Energy System whose chief executive is Anatoly Chubais, one of the architects of the post-Soviet market revolution whose liberal views sit uneasily with Kremlin hard-liners.
Reuters via MyWay