A rare white Bengal tiger cub has died at a zoo in Crimea due to the cold caused by a two-week power blackout.

Oleg Zubkov, director of the zoo in the Black Sea resort of Yalta, told news agencies the six-week-old male cub died after one of two generators at the zoo broke down.

Employees have been struggling to keep the animals warm, he said, adding that some are still in danger while the zoo awaits a replacement generator to arrive on Saturday from Moscow.

“We’ve failed to maintain the temperature regime,” Zubkov told the RIA Novosti news agency. “These were white Bengal tiger cubs, they are very particular about the warmth.”

The cub that died is an offspring of Ukraine’s most famous tiger, Tigryulia, which became a symbol in Yulia Tymoshenko’s 2010 presidential campaign. Tymoshenko gave the albino tiger to the Yalta zoo after the campaign.

Yulia Tymoshenko is presented with white albino tiger cub Tigryulia in 2009. Photograph: Aleksandr Prokopenko/AP

Zubkov did not give the exact date of the cub’s death and the zoo still has two of the dead cub’s siblings. Bengal tigers are a rare species, with just 135 believed to live in Russia.

The Associated Press could not immediately reach Zubkov for further comment.

Crimea’s prosecutor general, Natalia Poklonskaya, criticised Zubkov, blaming him for the cub’s death and saying the zoo should have bought diesel generators to save the animal’s life.

Crimea has been dealing with the power cut, despite Wednesday’s first delivery of power from Russia, since unknown attackers blew up electricity pylons near the de-facto Ukrainian-Crimean border nearly two weeks ago.

At least10% of the peninsula’s 2 million people are still without electricity. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 following a hastily called referendum.