• Residents in Krasnodar, southern Russia, staged a rare public protest due to recent power cuts.
• The local governor attributed the blackouts to a heatwave.
• A video showed police making at least two arrests during the protest.

Residents in Krasnodar, southern Russia, staged a rare public protest on Saturday due to recent power cuts, according to social media posts. The local governor attributed the blackouts to a heatwave.

Unusually hot weather in southern Russia has caused mass power outages in several regions and led to the shutdown of one of the four power units at the Rostov nuclear power plant, the region’s largest, earlier this week. Since then, the unit has been brought back into operation.

“There has been abnormal heat in the Krasnodar region for a week now. The load on the energy system is colossal. I know and understand all the indignation of residents due to power outages,” Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Krasnodar region, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He said that power capacities were currently insufficient to meet peak demand during the hot summer months. A video posted on the Baza Telegram channel appeared to show police making at least two arrests during Saturday’s protest.

Since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have clamped down on protest activity, particularly politically charged dissent. Public protests have become very rare due to the risk of arrest.

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