Russia decided not to extend a contract for power supply to Ukraine following the decision to stop buying Ukrainian electricity for Crimea, the newspaper Kommersant wrote on Tuesday.

"Russia will stop commercial power supply to Ukraine and the contract which expired last year will not be extended," the newspaper wrote.

"Russia is not negotiating power supply from Russia to Ukraine. We will not extend it [the contract] because it was linked to the contract for power supply from Ukraine to Crimea from the start," a representative of the Russian Energy Ministry told the newspaper.

Ukraine was buying electricity from the Russian power grids in 2014 under a contract between Inter RAO and Ukrinterenergo which expired in the end of 2015. A contract for power supply from Ukraine to Crimea was signed at the same time. It was not formally related to the export contract between Russia and Ukraine.

An emergency situation regime was put into place in Crimea because of the blackout of November 22, 2015. Rolling blackouts are in effect. It is planned to compensate for the 30-35% power deficit by May 2016 when the second line of the energy bridge from Kuban is launched. The first line was commissioned in December 2015 ahead of schedule.