PARIS/WASHINGTON –

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has taken an ominous new turn. So far it's Crimea that's paying the price, but Kiev could be next.

The Russian-held peninsula was plunged into darkness over the weekend as saboteurs in Ukraine cut off most of its electricity supply. A series of explosions in the south, starting on Thursday, knocked out transmission lines that supply 80 percent of Crimea's electricity. Most of the peninsula still has little or no power, and the Crimean government has declared a state of emergency, as Ukrainian protesters block utility crews from repairing the damage.

"It feels like you've descended into the Stone Age," Vladimir Garnachuk, a former Crimean government official, said by telephone from Sevastopol, where households are getting three to six hours of electricity a day.

On Monday, President Petro Poroshenko said Ukraine would temporarily suspend freight traffic to the peninsula, which depends on rail and truck shipments from Ukraine for most of its food and other essentials.

The action follows weeks of protests at border crossings, where Crimean Tatars and right-wing Ukrainian nationalists have been disrupting truck traffic into Crimea, including a complete blockage for the past week. In a statement on his website, Poroshenko said the national government in Kiev would engage in consultations "to determine a model of future relations with temporarily occupied Crimea."

Some protesters are demanding that Kiev sever all economic relations with Crimea. "There can't be a free economic zone in territories where bandits rule and where human rights are rudely violated," Mustafa Jemilev, a Ukrainian lawmaker and Crimean Tatar leader, said at a government meeting Monday.

The standoff, which arose from Russia's annexation of Crimea last year, poses big risks for Poroshenko and his government, said Joerg Forbrig, a Berlin-based analyst at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. If Kiev squeezes Crimea too hard, Russia could easily retaliate by halting exports of vital supplies to Ukraine, including Russian coal that Ukraine uses to generate electricity. The tension also could reignite fighting in eastern Ukraine, where an uneasy truce has held for several months, he said.

President Vladimir Putin might even consider launching a full-scale military operation to create a land bridge to Ukraine by seizing a large swath of territory in southeastern Ukraine, said Otilia Dhand, senior vice president at the Teneo Intelligence consultancy in Brussels.

Until now, Russia appears to have concluded that the political costs of such an operation would outweigh the benefits, Dhand said. But if Ukraine's actions lead to severe shortages in Crimea, "that could change the equation in the minds of policy makers in the Kremlin," she said.

Kiev has appeared ambivalent about the recent protests. Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn has ordered a criminal investigation to identify those responsible for power-line sabotage. Yet security forces have not tried to disperse protesters who have prevented repairs to the damaged lines, and police in recent weeks have not interfered with the unofficial blockade of trucks at border crossings. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is planning to hold talks with representatives of the Crimean Tatar community, which has demanded concessions from Moscow such as the release of political prisoners, as a condition for restoring electricity to Crimea.

The situation underscores Kiev's tenuous control over far- flung regions, Forbrig said. "There's a lot of discontent in Ukrainian society," including unhappiness with economic reforms and dissatisfaction with the government's handling of relations with Russia, he said. "This is a situation that will now force the government to take a clearer position toward its own citizens, and toward Russia."

Meanwhile, some 2 million Crimeans are living with little or no electricity. Ukraine has said that repairs to the power lines, once they begin, will take 72 hours to complete.

In the resort town of Yalta, all electricity was switched off at noon Monday, most shops were closed, and mobile telephone networks were down for most of the day. In the eastern Crimean town of Kerch, local news media reported, staff at a local boarding school had to cook food for children over an open fire.

Some Crimeans say the Ukrainian saboteurs aren't the only ones responsible. "The Crimean government had enough time to prepare for such an eventuality," Garnachuk, the former Crimean government official, said. "So it's them to blame."